“A highly respected and influential writer, Aronowitz is recognized for inspiring many, including Hunter S. Thompson. He counted among his close friends Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, George Harrison, Miles Davis, Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan, to name a few. At the time of his death, Al was working on a new book, “Mick and Miles,” detailing how he brought Mick Jagger and Miles Davis together.”–blacklistedjournalist
In the middle of the night, listening to “BAI on the radio, someone was sharing a great “poem” by a writer whose name I immediately recognized: Al Aronowitz. I loved reading his columns in the 60s and 70s in the Village Voice, The NY Post and other newspapers and magazines. This morning I google the poem to share with you since it is the month of August and also discovered that Aronowitz died in the month of August in 2005.
“AlAronowitz was often described as “the godfather of rock journalism”. His POP SCENE column in the NEW YORK POST turned him into one of the most powerful rock journalists in the world. Those columns – plus his writings in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, THE VILLAGE VOICE and many other publications – set the tone for all subsequent coverage of rock and roll. He collected some of his unpublished manuscripts in THE BLACKLISTED MASTERPIECES OF AL ARONOWITZ. As the man who introduced Allen Ginsberg to Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan to the Beatles, and the Beatles to marijuana, Al was known to boast that “the ’60s wouldn’t have been the same without me”. rock’sbackpages
The poem brings back a lot of great memories for me; I recognize all of the names/places mentioned…been to the clubs/festivals, saw the performers. Even if some of the names and places aren’t familiar to you, it’s a great piece of writing, especially listening to it being read aloud. There’s a lot of history in this here blues poem!
August Blues by Al Aronowitz
August is the month when wars start. It’s when the water dries up and the spirit begins to wither. Insomniacs pull down their shades and lock themselves in their rooms in August. Lifelong friends have fist fights. People feel like they’re going to burst. Sometimes they do.
World War I started in August, or just about. The Austro-Hungarian Army began bombarding Belgrade on July 29, 1914, not quite August, but then August sometimes begins early. World War II didn’t quite start in August either. A German pocket battleship anchored alongside the harbor fortifications while on a good will call to the Polish port of Gdynia let loose with a broadside at dawn of Sept. 1, 1939, but then August sometimes lasts for weeks after you’ve ripped it off the calendar. It drags on and on like some kind of insanity that can only be snapped away by the first crisp shock of autumn.
The sailing ships used to get becalmed in August. August is when dogs go mad. American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated by one of his own subordinates in August. This is the month when the sale of tranquilizers goes up. Corporate executives get their heads chopped off. Groups break up. Organizations fizzle out. August is when you start seeing things. The stars fall in August. You wake to days with the feeling you’ve already lived through them. People pass out in the street and on airplanes. The moon talks to you. August is the month of visions.
My father died in August. It was years ago. We were all standing around him when he gasped his last breath, emaciated on a bed of cancer. My three sisters and I each kissed him on the face and cried. I do not mean to say that August has cornered the market on tragedy. You can have fun in August; people die all year round. Shall I tell you about the other night in Central Park, the sky lit by a sliver of a moon, the weather air-conditioned by the first cool, abortive breath of the fall? August may end early this year.
On the park drive, bikers stood around in knots, talking about good times, holding onto their handlebars like nannies gossiping while little kids tugged at their hands. It was a better place to meet than at some bar. Outside the Schaefer Music Festival at the Wollman Rink, couples were stretched out on the grass, some on blankets. Others walked hand-in-hand. Bootleggers hawked albums like dealers selling drugs at some pop festival. There were pretzel pushcarts and ices pushcarts and a quiet carnival feeling of the kind of romance you see in pictures of some park in Paris on a gay, colorful night.
Inside the rink, the dusk darkened slowly while Carly Simon sang her hits in the skyscraper voice, as big and strong as her New York City. Backstage, promoter Ron Delsener was all dressed up for a Friar’s Club meeting. Ron had been hit early August. The last week in July, one of his security men had been stabbed to death at Ron’s Who concert at Forest Hills. A day or so later, one of the backstage crew at Madison Square Garden had fallen to his death while hanging rigging for Ron’s Steve Stills show. Ron himself had fallen sick the night of the show, put to bed by an inner-ear infection. August is when unexplainable fevers come. Nagging aches and mysterious pains visit your body. August has to be suffered.
The night was gentle. There was no strain. I laughed out loud when David Steinberg told about how God put a fly in Jezebel’s head to buzz as a punishment every time she lusted after a man. Jezebel liked the buzzing. The first girl I ever made it with was born in August. We used to break up just in time for her birthday every year. August is when the ocean dizzies you. August is when you find yourself drowning in your own head.
I went broke and lost my house in August some five years ago. It was almost August when Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the University of Texas tower and shot down forty-nine people, killing seventeen, sniping at random through the ramparts. August is when Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August. August is when Congress first passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Women turn into witches in August. I remember once I refused to buy a flower from an old lady selling them in the Nite Owl on Third Street. I was managing a group called the Myddle Class then, and they were onstage. The old lady gave me a dirty look and our sound system immediately went dead.
I suppose it has to do with the sun and the heat and the planets and the stars. Brian Epstein died in August. So did Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, although their August stretched through an Indian summer. It’s no accident the Jewish New Year begins then. August sometimes lasts until the sound of the ram’s horn. People move in September. School starts. Somehow the pulse revives. People begin to think about lighting fires for winter. Finally, August lets go like the leaves from the trees. And the weirdness ends.”
Here’s Carly Simon at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park:
I think Al Aronowitz would appreciate this fact that today, August 9th, in 1964, “Bob Dylan and Joan Baez share the stage for the first time, singing “With God On Our Side” at the Newport Folk Festival.” oldies.about.com
Ilene On Words 