I always disliked that cover very, very much. Grotesquery in art seems, to me, to be the very cheapest form of deviancy. When I fall asleep at night - perhaps this isn’t true for everyone, but it sure is for me - bullshit like that cover, and Bosch, and whatever other statements of the obvious you want to mention - are waiting at the ready. Also, the typography is atrocious.
It reminds me of that awful Gene Wilder Steppin’ Fetchit routine in -I think - SILVER STREAK…. “That’s right! We bad!” Oh! That Pat Sky! He bad!
It does a genuinely shocking song like LUANG PRABANG a disservice.
My other problem with the song is that it was written by Van Ronk, who was a happy Trotskyite... this is a bit of propaganda to disincentive young/dumb/full of cum American cannon fodder from enlisting. Always mistrusted such since noticing how the likes of Pete Seeger were all anti-war as Almanac Singers (“oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt...”) until Russia got attacked, then he got all Reuben James on us. There’s a big Ick factor on this.
Well, a Trot is either a humorless somewhat dim person with endless ability to go to meetings, or a romantic who never goes to any meetings. That second would be Dave. He did extraordinary service as an emcee and presenter of tradition. No one I ever wanted to meet, but he did the work. As to pacifism, it's an endless riddle. Never wanted to meet Pete either, that endlessly on-message man. Luang Prabang makes as much sense as it can. Not in Viet Nam, by the way. More on that in a subsequent post.
And I think you nailed DVR to a tee - in his book he talks about becoming disillusioned with the NYC Trotskyites because all they ever wanted to do was have endless meetings.
Air base for the CIA war. Dave was an athletic, bright, skilled guy who got out a lot. I expect he rubbed elbows with men from the secret war and thought their chatter was common knowledge. Also, I have not yet found a VNese toponym that works so well.
Yeah. Compare to the compassion Crumb shows in his similar drawings of America on parade. And that's my argument on the album, that in retrospect the songs are cheesy meta-folkie, except for Luang Prabang. I was surprised, going through the image, to find the point the cartoonist made along those lines, with Pat walking off not only from the Amurrica but from his career as an entertainer there. Aeolian pipes, here we come. The artist, Hunter Armstrong (oh my god I just realized who that is a reversal of) shot Vietnamese for the Army 66-8 then spent an honorable life bartending and illustrating for the bar business in his native Saratoga Springs.
I always disliked that cover very, very much. Grotesquery in art seems, to me, to be the very cheapest form of deviancy. When I fall asleep at night - perhaps this isn’t true for everyone, but it sure is for me - bullshit like that cover, and Bosch, and whatever other statements of the obvious you want to mention - are waiting at the ready. Also, the typography is atrocious.
It reminds me of that awful Gene Wilder Steppin’ Fetchit routine in -I think - SILVER STREAK…. “That’s right! We bad!” Oh! That Pat Sky! He bad!
It does a genuinely shocking song like LUANG PRABANG a disservice.
My other problem with the song is that it was written by Van Ronk, who was a happy Trotskyite... this is a bit of propaganda to disincentive young/dumb/full of cum American cannon fodder from enlisting. Always mistrusted such since noticing how the likes of Pete Seeger were all anti-war as Almanac Singers (“oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt...”) until Russia got attacked, then he got all Reuben James on us. There’s a big Ick factor on this.
Well, a Trot is either a humorless somewhat dim person with endless ability to go to meetings, or a romantic who never goes to any meetings. That second would be Dave. He did extraordinary service as an emcee and presenter of tradition. No one I ever wanted to meet, but he did the work. As to pacifism, it's an endless riddle. Never wanted to meet Pete either, that endlessly on-message man. Luang Prabang makes as much sense as it can. Not in Viet Nam, by the way. More on that in a subsequent post.
And I think you nailed DVR to a tee - in his book he talks about becoming disillusioned with the NYC Trotskyites because all they ever wanted to do was have endless meetings.
Good points, all. Yes, isn’t Luang Prabang a vacation spot in Laos or something? I looked it up one time and was very surprised.
Air base for the CIA war. Dave was an athletic, bright, skilled guy who got out a lot. I expect he rubbed elbows with men from the secret war and thought their chatter was common knowledge. Also, I have not yet found a VNese toponym that works so well.
Yeah. Compare to the compassion Crumb shows in his similar drawings of America on parade. And that's my argument on the album, that in retrospect the songs are cheesy meta-folkie, except for Luang Prabang. I was surprised, going through the image, to find the point the cartoonist made along those lines, with Pat walking off not only from the Amurrica but from his career as an entertainer there. Aeolian pipes, here we come. The artist, Hunter Armstrong (oh my god I just realized who that is a reversal of) shot Vietnamese for the Army 66-8 then spent an honorable life bartending and illustrating for the bar business in his native Saratoga Springs.