Of Crows, Liver and the Mythology of the Mountains

Of Crows, Liver and the Mythology of the Mountains

In April of 1968, Sidney Beckerman (who would go on to be the executive producer on "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension")

acquired the film rights to the novel "Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson" by Raymond W. Thorp jr. & Robert Bunker.

The book chronicled the exploits of the mountain man John “Liver-Eating” Johnson

- and in particular the period of his one man war with the Crow Indians. He was said to have been ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors and sold to the Crow. Highly dubious accounts have him escaping from the Crow after attacking and killing his guard - sawing off a leg for later nourishment, and fleeing into the woods.

[1] Most People attribute this to the so-called “Kentucky Cannibal” - Levi Boone Helm.

This incident sparked a war of vendetta that lasted 25 years - in which he is believed to have eaten the livers of his adversaries, before finally making peace.

Johnson eventually died in 1900 and was buried in Los Angeles. In June 1974, after a six-month campaign led by 25 seventh grade students and their teacher, Johnson's body was relocated to Cody, Wyoming.

In May of 1970, Warner Bros. bought the rights and John Milius (seen below sandwiched between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) began to adapt it for the screen.

Milius combined the source material with another novel - "Mountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West" by Vardis Fisher.

Vardis Fisher (March 31, 1895 – July 9, 1968) was a writer best known for his popular historical novels of the Old West.

Vardis Fisher was a bit of a mountain man himself, and one of his hobbies was house construction. He built his home in the Hagerman Valley, now part of Thousand Springs State Park.

Milius says he got the script's idiom and American spirit from Carl Sandburg and was also influenced by the Charles Portis novel "True Grit".

The role of Jeremiah Johnson was originally to be played by Lee Marvin and then Clint Eastwood, (seen below with Paul Newman…

who incidentally would go on to star with Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid”)

… with Sam Peckinpah attached to direct.

However, tensions between Peckinpah and Eastwood caused Peckinpah to leave the project. Eastwood went on to star in Dirty Harry - another script in which John Milius had a heavy hand. This eventually paved the way for Robert Redford to get the starring role with Sydney Pollack attached to direct.

In December 21, 1972 the film “Jeremiah Johnson” was released 72 years after the death of John “Liver-Eating” Johnson.

It was the first film I showed my wife Gina when we met. 

BTW, Will Geer (Bear Claw in the film) - a formerly blacklisted actor...

... met Woody Guthrie in Tijuana and the two lived together during the writing of many of Guthrie's best known songs - but that's another story.

As is the tale of Hugh Glass.

Damián Garcia & The Second Battle of the Alamo

Damian Garcia & The Second Battle of the Alamo

Damian Garcia grew up in the projects of San Bernardino, California. Garcia was a 1967 graduate of San Bernardino High and afterwards graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with a degree in the field of Latin American Studies. In the mid-‘70s he hooked up with the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (RCP-USA) and he dedicated his life to liberation. 

On March 20, 1980 Damian Garcia, along with two others, raised the red flag over the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. From the top of the Alamo, Damian announced through a bullhorn: "We've come to set the record straight about the Alamo. This is a symbol of theft of Mexican land. A symbol about the murder of Mexicans and Indians, and a symbol about the murder of Chicanos and Mexicanos throughout the whole Southwest."

They called on people to come out in struggle, together with people worldwide, on May 1st, International Workers Day.

They were arrested for desecration of a venerated object.

On April 22, 1980, a month after the Alamo action, Damian Garcia was stabbed to death while organizing in LA’s Pico-Aliso Gardens housing project in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. Members of Damian Garcia's political party strongly believe that the LAPD were covertly involved in the events leading to his murder. Garcia was survived by his wife Carole and their two year old son, also named Damian.

The Revolutionary Communist Party USA is a Maoist organization founded by expat Bob Avakian.

Two of its most prominent members are Sunsara Taylor (seen here sparring with Bill O'Reilly)...

... and spokesperson Carl Dix, seen here speaking at the Kimani Gray protest in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

KimaniGray NYTimes

RCPUSA

The Kasama Project

Portland Indy Media Article

For Further Reading

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1 FOOTNOTE^↩According to a Los Angeles Times report, the
RCP was distributing leaflets which said "No
Work, No School for May Day" when a crowd of
approximately 50 youth confronted them. The
shouting match that ensued quickly escalated to
violence when alleged youth gang members
turned fire hoses on RCP members and
demanded party members leave the project. At
first they turned project fire hoses on the RCP;
and then attacked them with fists and knives.
Two party members were stabbed, Damian
Garcia and Hayden Fisher. Garcia died at the
scene from multiple stab wounds to the abdomen,
chest and neck. Fisher was rushed to a nearby
hospital in critical condition with a stab wound
to the back and later recovered.

Losing My Religion

Losing My Religion

Politics should be boring. It should be populated by nondescript men and women who make decisions based on intelligence and wisdom and compassion. It should not be a carnival of pseudo reality show contestants in a mad dash to the bottom of the well of sensibility and reason.

Therefore, I have decided to convert to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster until such time as Christianity ceases to be a political entity supporting (by proxy) fascist demagogues, institutionalized racism, and the proliferation of gun violence and anti-intellectualism.

I am willing to bet my eternal soul that Jesus would not condone the current state of the church that uses his name. The organization and the villains that hide behind it have no relation to the lessons of mercy, forgiveness, and charity that I was taught as a child and I can no longer be a party to it.

You may now refer to me as a "Pastafarian".

Please, pass the garlic bread.

Famous People I Have Met!

Famous People I Have Met!

1. Stephen King - Barnes & Noble Sarasota, FL

2. Dicky Barrett - Warped Tour Jax, FL

3. Yann Martel - Sarasota Reading Festival

4. Bruce Feiler - Sarasota Reading Festival

5. Gene Wilder - Sarasota Reading Festival

6. Giada DeLaurentiis- Sur la Table Ft. Lauderdale, FL

7. Anthony Bourdain - Lakeland, FL

8. Lisa Loeb - Orlando, FL

9. Harvey Pekar - Cleveland, OH

10. Mariel Hemingway - Sarasota, FL

11. Jerry Springer - Barnes & Noble Sarasota, Fl

12. Steve Buscemi - Sarasota Film Festival

13. Harlan Twible (USS Indianapolis Survivor) - Barnes & Noble Sarasota, FL

14. Pat Mastelotto - Red Bank, NJ

15. Bryan Johnson - Red Bank, NJ 

16. Ming Chen - Red Bank, NJ

17. Pop Culturalist Robert Bruce - Red Bank, NJ

18. The Comic Book Men - Red Bank, NJ

19. Patricia Fripp - Atlanta, GA

20. Robert Fripp - Atlanta, GA (quid pro quo)

21. Jakko Jakszyk and David Singleton - Atlanta, GA

22. Randy Wayne White - Barnes & Noble Sarasota, FL. 

23. Emma Gonzalez - UTC Target, FL.

24. Clyde Butcher - St. Armand's, FL

The Metronome Effect of Ping Pong (poem)

The Metronome Effect of Ping Pong (poem)

It was a time of half-mast flags

Aurora, Newtown, Oak Creek,

Oklahoma

earthbound by gravity

limp on rusted poles

sunbleached

not so much as a breath of wind

On machine street's golden last gleaming

where the sun sets long shadows

on the spires of the citadels

& the rain falls gently on rustbelt America,

harken back to the great migration

of the early 20th century

black men and women on the redemption road

from the sweat and fiery hatred

of the south - to the promise of the northlands

the great cities with their metallic facades

and their promise of jobs

and as they flowed as one great black river

into the cities the whites fled to the suburbs

and beyond - leaving metropolis

to the great barbarian horde

and alas, for a time it was good

America - center of manufacturing

hope for the world - birthplace of the middle class

the factories steamed and shuddered

whistles blew as trumpets

from some great golden colossus

a capitalist utopia

a pinnacle of wax wing dreams

a promise too good… too beautiful to last

and alas the waters began to recede

and the stink of the riverbed

with its rusted cans

and dead fish

and broken bottles

began to fill the air

America the center of

manufacturing

where factories dotted the landscape

like spines of a half buried leviathan

switched to a service economy

and sent its jobs overseas

and traded the futures and hopes of its

children for cheaply made chinese goods

and fast food and materialism

In a span of 10 years

Michigan lost 50% of its manufacturing jobs

50,000 factories closed

6 million people out of work

and Detroit became a city in exile

with 100,000 empty and abandoned homes

something like Pripyet but without the radiation

hookers bums drugs money

copper wire vultures

men wandering the street muttering

"they sent my job to may-hee-co…"

as the snow fell on rusted storefronts

shuttered buildings

through broken windows

onto empty shop floors

in the streets ashcan fires burn

men sing the blues

and the rust drips like blood onto the snow filled streets

the city is bleeding

the nation is bleeding

wounded

the middle class served as a buffer between the wealthy 2% and the poor wretched masses

without that buffer there is no choice but revolution

let the arias ring forth from the opera houses

to the streets below

let art and culture be the saviors of the cities

let their promise return

austerity be damned - let us reach for the fiery golden cup - the dream deferred - the promise borne aloft on the fabric of the flag - woven into its threads

take to the streets and wrench back what was always ours from those who would feast like scavengers on the bloated corpse of America - on its bones and sinew

and maybe our cities will rise again on the plains

and once again be beacons of hope to the dispossessed

until that time perhaps its best to leave the flags at half mast

sometimes their flapping obscures our vision and keeps us from seeing the great cities burning like ashcans in the distant night

until we wonder why ash keeps falling upon our own doorsteps

gathering in drifts across the landscape