Panama Red and Elvis

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/17/panama-red-and-elvis/

Heading Towards the Setting Sun

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/06/heading-towards-the-setting-sun/

Dylan and Woody: Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/24/dylan-and-woody-goin-down-the-road-feelin-bad/

If Daydream Sunset:60s Counterculture in the '70s had a playlist, this would be it

“I’m Free”----The Who from Tommy

“Good Times, Bad Times”----Led Zeppelin

“The Israelites”---Desmond Dekker and the Aces

“Gimme Shelter”----Rolling Stones from Let It Bleed

“Okie From Muskogee”---Merle Haggard

“New Speedway Boogie”---Grateful Dead from Workingman’s Dead

“Luv & Haight”---Sly and the Family Stone from There’s a Riot Goin’ On

“For Everyman”---Jackson Browne from For Everyman

“I Threw It All Away”---Bob Dylan from Nashville Skyline

“God”---John Lennon from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

“Them Changes”---Jimi Hendrix from Band of Gypsys

“Ohio”---Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

“Out of Gas”---Prairie Fire

“Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon”---Phil Ochs

“H₂0 Gate Blues”----Gil Scott Heron/Brian Jackson from Winter in America

“Hurricane”---Bob Dylan and Rolling Thunder Revue from Live 1975

“Break It Up”---Patti Smith Group from Horses

“Before the Deluge”---Jackson Browne from Late For the Sky

“Rebel, Rebel”---David Bowie from Diamond Dogs

“Backstreets”----Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from Born to Run

“Simple Man”---Lynyrd Skynyrd from (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)

“Red Headed Stranger”---Willie Nelson from Red Headed Stranger

“Sitting In Limbo”---Jimmy Cliff from The Harder They Come

“White Riot”---The Clash

“Rebel Music”---Bob Marley and the Wailers from Natty Dread

“Long Hot Summer”---Tom Robinson Band from Power in the Darkness

“God Save the Queen”---The Sex Pistols

“Less Than Zero”---Elvis Costello and the Attractions from My Aim is True

“What About Me?”---Quicksilver Messenger Service from What About Me?

“Estimated Prophet”---Grateful Dead from Dick’s Picks Volume 15/Live Englishtown, NJ 9/3/1977

“Respectable”---Rolling Stones from Some Girls

“Vicious”---Lou Reed from Transformer

“The Pretender”---Jackson Browne from The Pretender

“Factory”---Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from Darkness On the Edge of Town

 “Jimmy Jazz”---The Clash from London Calling

“California Über Alles”---Dead Kennedys

“You Gotta’ Serve Somebody”---Bob Dylan from Slow Train Coming

“Comfortably Numb”---Pink Floyd from The Wall

“US Blues”---Grateful Dead live 1/15/1980 Cambodian Refugees Benefit, Oakland, CA.

Tripping Through the American NIght Now Available on Kindle

http://www.amazon.com/Tripping-Through-American-Night-Jacobs-ebook/dp/B00GRZN7SY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385127274&sr=1-1&keywords=tripping+through+the+american+night

Selling the Family Home

Thoughts on my recent visit to help clear out the family home before my dad closed on the deal.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/selling-the-family-home/#more-51465

Nothing Left To Lose

Back in the mid-1970s a lover and I hitchhiked from Maryland's D.C. suburbs to Orange County, California. We lasted a week in that Republican purgatory, then hitched up to Berkeley. Within a couple weeks, my friend and I were collecting unemployment, living in Oakland and familiarizing ourselves with the street scene along Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue and San Francisco's Haight Street. Although I had been quite involved with various anarchist and communist radicals in the DC area, I was primarily interested in participating in what remained of the counterculture by the time I moved to Berkeley. Politics had both worn me out and disillusioned me.

Yet, politics wouldn't leave me alone. I ran into former Black Panthers, White Panthers and leftover Weather Underground types while I did bong hits. One of my friends was a communist organizer who knew lots of radicals from all over the Bay Area. Soon, several other friends from the suburban tracts we had left behind had joined us. We got an apartment. My lover and I eventually went our own ways while remaining housemates.

A couple close friends of mine who were quite political asked me if I was interested in joining their cell. What, I asked, would this entail? I was told that I would have to share everything with them and be willing to undertake "armed" activities. We had several long and deep discussions. I seriously considered their offer, but declined for political and philosophical reasons. We remained good friends and they decided not to engage in so-called armed actions. I was relieved for a number of reasons.

The people I met and hung out with on Telegraph Ave. were some of the most colorful and free individuals I have ever known. Some paid for their freedom with their lives. Some traded it in for something else. Some lost it to the law. Nonetheless, they did have some freedom to lose. Maybe, because (let me refer to a rock tune) they had nothing else left to lose.

The Co-Conspirator's Tale is motivated partially by these experiences. It is something of a speculation about what might have happened if my friends and I had decided to create that cell and engage in bombings, etc. Simultaneously, it is a contemplation on the nature of a system where (as Mick Jagger sings) "every cop is a criminal," and a sanctioned one at that.

My previous novel Short Order Frame Up examines similar aspects of our society, although it is the racism of the system and the cops who work for it that are called into question. The corruption in The Co-Conspirator's Tale does not even have the tawdry principles of a racist pair of cops to dignify it. In fact, the only motivation is to protect and preserve a system built on lies and maintained by deceit and power.