Dark Side of the 60's Moon by Mike Marino (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

break, get Liam to Chicago and in the process take part in was sure to be the Godzilla of all protests. My new daughter China would be proud of pop.

We loaded up the aging camper in St. Ignace where we kept her stored, hidden in a large garage by a friendly local radio DJ who also had “forgotten” to answer the call for the draft and was our Michigan contact, part of the conduit of the Underground Railroad. The next morning at dawn’s  early light, minus the rockets red glare,  we crossed the Macinac Bridge  headed south and west for the Richard Daly Dachau domain of Chicago. It was a Graham Nash moment in retrospect. We planned to get Liam safely there, march peacefully in protest while I filled my notebook with Pulitzer Prize winning data to fashion an article or two of the event for the San Francisco Oracle, the Berkeley Barb, Detroit’s Fifth Estate newspaper and The Ally anti-war military newspaper, all of whom I did columns for. My literary mushroom was expanding.

1968 in Late Great Altered States of America. The Red, White and Screwed. It was an era that ripped the bra off of Lady Liberty to reveal her fake tits and hypocrisy. It would be a politico warning shot fired over the head of a disheveled establishment. The tattered flag that represented a faded American dream was emerging from the chaotic mushroom cloud of Flower Power. That year alone in April brought about the assassination Martin Luther King...in June, Bobby Kennedy never made it to Chicago.

Chicago would ignite a  law and order police meltdown. The Vietnam War was a raging drunken baddass biker in a bar loaded up on too many bennies and dexies. The Black Panthers and Angela Davis had "gone to the top of the mountain" too, and realized it was the perfect spot for a sniper.



The Elections of '68 in and of themselves were a farce, a frightening drama unfolding eventually between two nominees from both parties. Democrat Hubert Humphrey had an irritating voice that largely worked against him. Nasal and high pitched he sounded more like Truman Capote going into labor.

On the other side of the two faced political coin of the realm was Republican Richard Nixon. Never trust a politician with a perennial five o'clock shadow and the jowls of a rabid bulldog.

The only viable candidate it seems was an actual pig, named Pigasus nominated by Phil Ochs and whose nomination accepted by Jerry Rubin. This "people’s" nomination took place during the riots and both Ochs and Rubin, along with the pig were arrested by Mayor Daley's goon squad in blue on an obscure still on the books livestock ordinance violation! Ok, too many police pig puns I can get drowned in here..Pig Puns..Pig Pen..see?

The counter convention of the people was planned by many factions of the American Left but the clown prince's were the Youth International Party or Yippees along with the SDS. Eventually the riots culminated in more blood flowing than Lake Michigan.
This was the police riot that subsequently defined the American meltdown of the American wet-dream, and many were now thinking of bullets over ballots.

"Free Huey" and "Burn Baby, Burn" had become the new bestselling militant mantra, pushing "We Shall Overcome" from the top of the Civil Rights pop music charts...and the hits kept on a'comin'. Michigan had spawned the Students for a Democratic Society on the heels of the Port Huron Statement, and from that seedling, sprang the Weathermen...and by the way, you really don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.


The revolution was on....but we never expected to be in the crosshairs. Chapter 28 Bend Over America

 

 

Five hours out of Mackinaw City the trusty camper was cruising into the the shadow of the Detroit skyline. We had called my parents to meet us at the Big Boy restaurant on Jefferson Ave. by Belle Isle. Belle Isle! Serene island in the middle of the Detroit River where kids fly kites, families BBQ, and young naked teenage  lovers rip it up in the back seats. I wanted to see them one more time to introduce them to Myrika and to let them know I was OK and not to worry...I was living in Canada now with two sets of I.D. One American and one Canadian. I was Claude Rains’ “Invisible Man” in either direction of the border, to or fro.

By keeping my folks in the dark as to my whereabouts I was safe from any slip ups when the Feds come knocking on their door. Reassurance was all I had to offer. Not much I grant you.

They took to Myrika immediately. As for Liam, he was introduced as  a friend from Ireland who was attending City College in NYC on his way home, location undisclosed for obvious reasons. I left out the part about his role in the Irish Republican Army shooting of a British soldier in Belfast. Probably a Protestant with a hard-on for anything Catholic. Besides they’d be more upset at the word “republican” as they were die hard Democrats who revered St. FDR and St. Jack Kennedy, the patron saint of holy virgins.

We enjoyed a typical Detroit Big Boy dinner of a double decker burger, massive amounts of fries with my proverbial side order of dipping mayonnaise, “Bring Out The Hellman’s, and Bring Out The Best” they say and sing and jingle.

Conversation was centered on the war. Joey’s name came up along with Olivia’s. We went into mime mode and disavowed any knowledge as to their whereabouts, or my planting a newborn garden in Olivia’s womb.

Dad was truly a Hubert Humphrey man. “I was watching Cronkite earlier. He’s disgusted and lets it show. I mean the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched attacks  with something like 20  separate attacks throughout South Vietnam. Over 600 Viet Cong, supported by elements of two North Vietnamese divisions, attacked the provincial capital, capturing several government installations. It’s getting so we’re about to meet OUR Dunkirk. Glad you took your stand son.”


I never felt prouder. If pop approved, I made the right move. As he always said to me, “Point your moral compass in any direction and you won’t get lost. You’ll always find your way.”

Mom was not very political. She was more interested in this rather tall blonde who had hijacked her son’s heart and soul.

“Myrika, such a beautiful name. What part of Germany are you from?” she inquired.
I answered before Myrika could speak. “She’s Hitler’s illegitimate daughter born in a Berlin bunker and escaped after the war making her way through Soviet infested Russia on the Siberian Railway. When she came to lands end, she swam across the Bering Straits, guided by polar bears and ended up in Alaska. From there she hitched a ride with some Eskimos to New York.”

“My son the asshole.” Yep, that’s my mom. She taught me how to use my mouth to get in trouble.

Myrika had to laugh. “I am from Berlin, yes and am a student, well a  journalism student. Photojournalism. I want to make difference in  world through my eyes and my lens.”

“Mikey, you have quite a woman there, son.”

“Thanks Pop. She plays guitar and writes music too...she is INCREDIBLE!!”

Liam just took it all in. He was a fugitive, traveling with two other fugitives and having dinner in the Murder Capital of America with a nice suburban Italian-Canadian couple.

“Liam doesn’t talk much. He’s here on a mime scholarship from the St. Patricks Relief Fund sponsored by Queen Elizabeth. Her boy Charlie is a mime too.”

Even Liam had to laugh and open up the socializing door a crack.

After dinner we all parted company. The Red Sea of Moses would see us shacked up for the night at the Bel Mar Motel on Jefferson Ave. The only downtown motel with fake palm trees indicative of the Detroit equatorial tropical atmosphere. OK, it was a dive. In Detroit, that’s referred to as ambiance.

We’d get a good night’s sleep amid the sounds of police sirens in the background and the restful sound of occasional gunfire from Belle Isle. A warning to Windsor Canadians to stay on that side of river..or else.

In the morning. Breakfast at Tiffany’s...or Big Boys, whichever came first. Then….On to Chicago where we’d deliver our Irish mime into the hands of the IRA underground...then Myrika and I would hit the Convention streets and write and photograph what turned out to be pure carnage on a scale I had never seen before. America was coming apart at the seams. The establishment put on it’s law and order condom, and we the people were about to take it in the old red, white and blue ass.

Bend over Free Speech America! You’re about to be fucked….

Chapter 29 Chicago: Takin' It To The Streets

 

Al Capone’s old Chicago! Thick ass Eye-talian pizza! Urban blues Butterfield nightclubs and historically, Upton Sinclair’s Slavic meat packing plants side by side with those corrupt  rail baron railroads. We blew into  the Windy City  at 6 P.M. or so, Wednesday, August 21, the day before  American Democracy would begin it’s descent into the establishment toilet. Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!

The VW camper guided us on fumes to the intersection of 107th and Western, the Southside epicenter of the Windy City’s leprechaun infested pot of gold neighborhoods where the sympathies for the IRA and Sein Fein were damned near a religion. I could image old Pat O’Brien in priestly garb giving holy Hollywood benediction to Michael Collins and the Free Irish Republic. It was ground zero for ice cold Guinness, warm ale and dirty limericks about farmers daughters and errant sailors on shore leave.

We pulled up in front of O’Neill’s Irish flag draped pub, where we had instructions to meet Liam’s contact in the Irish underground, Willie Tennant, who was standing outside the pub chain smoking Players cigarettes and joking with a crew of street toughs who would drop a dago mafioso without batting an eye.   From inside the pub the music of Clipper Carlton wafted through the smoke making it’s way from the Wurlitzer inside to the streets. All very Gaelic.  The only thing missing was the Miss Irish Potato  Festival Queen and a few New York City Westies with meat cleavers in hand.

“Here ya go Liam. Godspeed and good luck. We’ll be around for a few days and you have our address in Michigan if