Had I not been desperately in need of money in order to pay my half of the following month's rent for the basement apartment in Jamaica that I was again sharing with Barry in the Fall, there's no way I would have been willing to be interviewed for a "dictaphone-typist" job within Manhattan's court system. But given my desperate economic situation, I felt compelled to let myself be interviewed.
When I reported to the personnel department in Manhattan's Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street, the elderly white guy, who appeared to be in his early 60's, seemed so glad to find a white guy who typed 80 wpm for the dictaphone-typist position that needed to be filled at the courthouse that, with a smile, he offered me the job on the spot. And, given the fact that, whatever chance I still had to eventually get mailed an unemployment benefit check by New York State would vanish if I now refused Manhattan's Criminal Court dictaphone typist job, I also felt economically compelled to agree to report for work in the Criminal Court building the following week.
Having demonstrated outside 100 Centre Street in the 1960's during the beginning of the Panther 21 trial, in which a jury eventually found all defendants innocent of the trumped-up "conspiracy" charges on which the New York City cops and the F.B.I. COINTELPRO agents attempted to frame and convict them, I was already somewhat familiar with the 100 Centre Street building. In addition, when I was arrested inside Hamilton Hall in late May of 1968 during the second New York City police invasion of Columbia University's campus (for the purpose of ending the Spring 1968 Columbia Student Revolt against the Columbia administration's policy of institutionally sponsoring Viet Nam war-related Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research, constructing a racially segregated "Jim Crow" gymnasium on public land in Morningside Park and suspending dissident anti-war and anti-racist students for non-violently demonstrating inside Columbia University's buildings), I had actually spent a night inside one of the crowded holding pens at 100 Centre Street; before being brought into one of its courtrooms and released on probation, pending a trial for the "criminal trespassing" charge that was eventually dropped by New York County's "criminal justice system".
But to actually work inside 100 Centre Street as a "dictaphone-typist" for the court system for even a brief time in the 1970's provided me with a slightly different angle to view the scene there.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (71)
Given the unemployment office's unintentional (or perhaps intentional) delay in mailing the benefit checks I was entitled to, I was, consequently, forced to go to the New York State Employment Bureau again to try to get placed on some kind of clerical-typist-type job before my hoped-for 6-month period of being on unemployment benefits, which would enable me to devote more time to folk songwriting and activism and romantic love-seeking than I had been able to do in the 1970's during my periods of wage enslavement.
Surprisingly (and perhaps because the New York State bureaucrats felt that if they didn't make more of an effort to place me quickly I might actually end up being able to collect the unemployment benefits from the State that was due me), after I scored 80 wpm on the typing test that I was given, the New York State Employment Bureau actually set-up an appointment for a job interview for an open "dictaphone-typist" position for the following day.
The catch, however, was that the "dictaphone-typist" job opening to which I was required to go to in order to retain my unemployment benefit eligibility, and required to accept if offered in order to retain my eligibility, was with a New York State government agency which I felt functioned as a tool for unjustly incarcerating, in a mass way, the African-American poor, U.S. political dissidents and left-wing anti-war and anti-imperialist activists, poor whites and white working-class people of all races in New York City: The New York County Supreme Court at 100 Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan, near Foley Square.
Surprisingly (and perhaps because the New York State bureaucrats felt that if they didn't make more of an effort to place me quickly I might actually end up being able to collect the unemployment benefits from the State that was due me), after I scored 80 wpm on the typing test that I was given, the New York State Employment Bureau actually set-up an appointment for a job interview for an open "dictaphone-typist" position for the following day.
The catch, however, was that the "dictaphone-typist" job opening to which I was required to go to in order to retain my unemployment benefit eligibility, and required to accept if offered in order to retain my eligibility, was with a New York State government agency which I felt functioned as a tool for unjustly incarcerating, in a mass way, the African-American poor, U.S. political dissidents and left-wing anti-war and anti-imperialist activists, poor whites and white working-class people of all races in New York City: The New York County Supreme Court at 100 Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan, near Foley Square.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (70)
Before spending some of the Fall in which I lived in the basement apartment in Jamaica hitching around the U.S.A., I had assumed that, upon my return, I would be able to collect unemployment insurance benefits, and use my unemployment benefit check money to pay rent and food costs for the next 26 or 39 weeks, based on my clean lay-off from the Council on International Educational Exchange [C.I.E.E.] seasonal student travel agency clerical job at the end of August.
Unfortunately for me, however, after I applied for unemployment benefits, the Unemployment Insurance Division of New York State that was responsible for mailing out my weekly benefit check apparently took its sweet time about sending me my benefit check. Even over four weeks after applying for unemployment insurance benefits, no unemployment compensation check had been mailed to me.
I did, however, pick up $20 one morning, after reporting to the local unemployment office in Jamaica near Sutphin Blvd., to stand in line before signing for yet another promised but undelivered unemployment benefit check, when, on the way home, a nun called to me after noticing me walking on the sidewalk in front of the church where she worked. Needing a man to carry into the church a pile of boxes that had been dropped off on the sidewalk in front of the church, the nun offered to pay me $20 if I agreed to carry the boxes into the church. Yet after paying my half of the basement apartment's rent for the current month, I no longer had enough money to pay my half of the following month's rent.
Unfortunately for me, however, after I applied for unemployment benefits, the Unemployment Insurance Division of New York State that was responsible for mailing out my weekly benefit check apparently took its sweet time about sending me my benefit check. Even over four weeks after applying for unemployment insurance benefits, no unemployment compensation check had been mailed to me.
I did, however, pick up $20 one morning, after reporting to the local unemployment office in Jamaica near Sutphin Blvd., to stand in line before signing for yet another promised but undelivered unemployment benefit check, when, on the way home, a nun called to me after noticing me walking on the sidewalk in front of the church where she worked. Needing a man to carry into the church a pile of boxes that had been dropped off on the sidewalk in front of the church, the nun offered to pay me $20 if I agreed to carry the boxes into the church. Yet after paying my half of the basement apartment's rent for the current month, I no longer had enough money to pay my half of the following month's rent.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (69)
It was during the Fall that I was living in the basement apartment in Jamaica that I first noted the negative political results at Queens College of the Zionist movement's well-funded post-1970 program to push "Jewish identity" consciousness and "Jewish studies" programs on campus, in which some assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background took some courses for college credit.
By the late 1960's, the elderly, rich white folks who funded or controlled the "professional Jews"/Zionist/Jewish nationalist organizations and lobbying groups in the U.S.A. apparently became concerned that too many assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background felt more of a political affinity with the African-American Liberation movement in the USA and groups like the Black Panther Party, or anti-imperialist New Left groups like SDS, than they did for Israel, Zionist youth groups in the U.S.A. or on-campus Hillel groups.
The "Jewish identity" and "Jewish Studies" programs the Zionist movement set up in the 1970's on U.S. campuses, it was hoped, would counter the apparent drift of assimilated students of Jewish religious background to the anti-imperialist New Left of the 1970's, in a more successful way than it was countered politically by the Zionist movement in the 1960's.
And by the mid-1970's--once the assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background and their womenfriends felt there was no longer any risk of being drafted by the U.S. military for an imperialist war, after U.S. military intervention in Vietnam began winding down, draft calls were reduced and the draft was eventually ended--the "Jewish identity" programs push at places like Queens College did seem to have succeeded, somewhat, in increasing the numbers of students who got involved in pro-Israeli, Zionist student youth groups than had been involved in similar groups in the 1960's, during the Vietnam War Era and the heyday of the New Left and SDS.
Checking out a forum on Middle East issues at Queens College one evening in the Fall, I was surprised, for example, to see that the number of Queens College students who cheered the Israeli government's representative when he defended his government's policy of refusing to negotiate directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization and refusing to withdraw, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, from the territories it had occupied during the June 1967 Middle East War, outnumbered the Queens College students who were critical of Israeli militarism, from an anti-imperialist left point of view.
And when I spent a few minutes, after the forum, explaining why people in the U.S., regardless of religious background, had an internationalist obligation to oppose Israeli militarism and human rights violations and support the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination on democratic grounds, to a white woman student of Jewish religious background, whom most men would likely have considered physically attractive, she seemed to become enraged at me, while calling me a "self-hater" and "a traitor." For a second, it almost looked like she was going to even test out the effectiveness of her apparently recent martial arts training on me, if I hadn't decided that there was no point in continuing the discussion with her and started to quickly walk away from her.
By the late 1960's, the elderly, rich white folks who funded or controlled the "professional Jews"/Zionist/Jewish nationalist organizations and lobbying groups in the U.S.A. apparently became concerned that too many assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background felt more of a political affinity with the African-American Liberation movement in the USA and groups like the Black Panther Party, or anti-imperialist New Left groups like SDS, than they did for Israel, Zionist youth groups in the U.S.A. or on-campus Hillel groups.
The "Jewish identity" and "Jewish Studies" programs the Zionist movement set up in the 1970's on U.S. campuses, it was hoped, would counter the apparent drift of assimilated students of Jewish religious background to the anti-imperialist New Left of the 1970's, in a more successful way than it was countered politically by the Zionist movement in the 1960's.
And by the mid-1970's--once the assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background and their womenfriends felt there was no longer any risk of being drafted by the U.S. military for an imperialist war, after U.S. military intervention in Vietnam began winding down, draft calls were reduced and the draft was eventually ended--the "Jewish identity" programs push at places like Queens College did seem to have succeeded, somewhat, in increasing the numbers of students who got involved in pro-Israeli, Zionist student youth groups than had been involved in similar groups in the 1960's, during the Vietnam War Era and the heyday of the New Left and SDS.
Checking out a forum on Middle East issues at Queens College one evening in the Fall, I was surprised, for example, to see that the number of Queens College students who cheered the Israeli government's representative when he defended his government's policy of refusing to negotiate directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization and refusing to withdraw, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, from the territories it had occupied during the June 1967 Middle East War, outnumbered the Queens College students who were critical of Israeli militarism, from an anti-imperialist left point of view.
And when I spent a few minutes, after the forum, explaining why people in the U.S., regardless of religious background, had an internationalist obligation to oppose Israeli militarism and human rights violations and support the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination on democratic grounds, to a white woman student of Jewish religious background, whom most men would likely have considered physically attractive, she seemed to become enraged at me, while calling me a "self-hater" and "a traitor." For a second, it almost looked like she was going to even test out the effectiveness of her apparently recent martial arts training on me, if I hadn't decided that there was no point in continuing the discussion with her and started to quickly walk away from her.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (68)
By the time the sun had set on that Fall day, I was beginning to feel the effects of the acid. Consequently, when I got to the Queens College student union building I was flying high as a result of the acid.
Although I was able to find the unmarked back entrance door to the student union building that Barry had mentioned, a Queens College women student with a walkie-talkie, whose work-study job was apparently to patrol the student union building's stairwells, coincidentally, was walking down the stairs in the hallway near the back entrance of the student union building at the exact moment when I made my entrance.
"Let me see your I.D.!," she called out to me immediately after she spotted me while, at the same time, walking towards me quickly in order to block me from going down the stairs to the basement cafe.
Surprised by being spotted so unluckily, despite Barry's promise earlier that day, that there was no unforeseen difficulty in getting into the student union building by the unmarked back entrance, and being so high that I wasn't as quick-thinking as I might otherwise have been, all I could think of doing was to smile sheepishly and whisper to the woman student patrol monitor, "I''m a friend of one of the security guards and he told me I could use this back door to come into the building."
"You say you're a friend of one of the security guards and he said you could use this entrance to sneak in?" the woman student patrol monitor asked in a suspicious voice. "What's your friend's name?"
At that point, however, I suddenly realized that I'd better try to bring myself down quickly from the acid before I got Barry into trouble and possibly cost him the weekend job that he liked so much. And I somehow managed to start retracting my story about "my friend" telling "me I could use this back door to come into the building," by answering "I was just putting you on. So why don't I just leave now, since I don't have a student I.D.? And we can forget the whole thing."
The woman student stairwell patrol monitor, however, was apparently still suspicious and, blocking me from leaving the building through the same door through which I had entered, she said "Why don't you just wait a minute, while I call my supervisor?"
She then spoke a few words through her walkie-talkie and, a few minutes later, an African-American man in his late 20's, who was dressed in a mod way, appeared.
"Now why don't you tell him what you told me about how you got into the building without showing a student I.D.?" the woman student patrol monitor said.
Thinking quickly, I winked at the African-American man and said: "Look, brother. I'm too high to recall how I stumbled into this building. You know what I mean. But now that I know you need a student I.D. to get into the building on Saturday night, I promise I'll never try sneaking in here again."
The African-American supervisor laughed and replied: "Well, we'll let you go now, brother. But if we ever catch you inside here again without a student I.D., we might have to just call the police to take you away."
"Thanks a lot, brother," I said in a grateful tone as the student parole monitor and her supervisor led me to the exit door through which I left the building.
Once outside the Queens College Student Union building I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to retreat from the building without apparently costing Barry his job. And by the time Barry returned from his security guard job around midnight to the Jamaica basement apartment, I was asleep. The next day, however, Barry asked: "What happened to you? I though I'd be seeing you in the basement cafe last night?"
Laughing, I replied: "I was on acid and it turned out I couldn't find the back entrance door. So I ended up just coming back here early and listening to music until I started to fall asleep.".
Although I was able to find the unmarked back entrance door to the student union building that Barry had mentioned, a Queens College women student with a walkie-talkie, whose work-study job was apparently to patrol the student union building's stairwells, coincidentally, was walking down the stairs in the hallway near the back entrance of the student union building at the exact moment when I made my entrance.
"Let me see your I.D.!," she called out to me immediately after she spotted me while, at the same time, walking towards me quickly in order to block me from going down the stairs to the basement cafe.
Surprised by being spotted so unluckily, despite Barry's promise earlier that day, that there was no unforeseen difficulty in getting into the student union building by the unmarked back entrance, and being so high that I wasn't as quick-thinking as I might otherwise have been, all I could think of doing was to smile sheepishly and whisper to the woman student patrol monitor, "I''m a friend of one of the security guards and he told me I could use this back door to come into the building."
"You say you're a friend of one of the security guards and he said you could use this entrance to sneak in?" the woman student patrol monitor asked in a suspicious voice. "What's your friend's name?"
At that point, however, I suddenly realized that I'd better try to bring myself down quickly from the acid before I got Barry into trouble and possibly cost him the weekend job that he liked so much. And I somehow managed to start retracting my story about "my friend" telling "me I could use this back door to come into the building," by answering "I was just putting you on. So why don't I just leave now, since I don't have a student I.D.? And we can forget the whole thing."
The woman student stairwell patrol monitor, however, was apparently still suspicious and, blocking me from leaving the building through the same door through which I had entered, she said "Why don't you just wait a minute, while I call my supervisor?"
She then spoke a few words through her walkie-talkie and, a few minutes later, an African-American man in his late 20's, who was dressed in a mod way, appeared.
"Now why don't you tell him what you told me about how you got into the building without showing a student I.D.?" the woman student patrol monitor said.
Thinking quickly, I winked at the African-American man and said: "Look, brother. I'm too high to recall how I stumbled into this building. You know what I mean. But now that I know you need a student I.D. to get into the building on Saturday night, I promise I'll never try sneaking in here again."
The African-American supervisor laughed and replied: "Well, we'll let you go now, brother. But if we ever catch you inside here again without a student I.D., we might have to just call the police to take you away."
"Thanks a lot, brother," I said in a grateful tone as the student parole monitor and her supervisor led me to the exit door through which I left the building.
Once outside the Queens College Student Union building I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to retreat from the building without apparently costing Barry his job. And by the time Barry returned from his security guard job around midnight to the Jamaica basement apartment, I was asleep. The next day, however, Barry asked: "What happened to you? I though I'd be seeing you in the basement cafe last night?"
Laughing, I replied: "I was on acid and it turned out I couldn't find the back entrance door. So I ended up just coming back here early and listening to music until I started to fall asleep.".
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (67)
Since the weather was nice outside, however, I decided to spend that Saturday afternoon outside, enjoying the fresh Fall air and walking around Queens. And near the end of the afternoon, as I walked on the sidewalk along the Long Island Expressway service road, I was approached on the street by a white woman who looked like she was still just a junior or senior in high school.
"Wanna buy a tab of acid for 5 dollars?" she asked me, apparently because I was then long-haired, bearded and looked like a freak.
"Sure," I replied. Then, after I took my wallet out of my pocket and handed her a 5 dollar bill, the white high school woman student gave me a tab of acid in exchange; and then she quickly started to walk ahead in the direction opposite from the direction I was walking.
Apparently she was more interested in finding other freak customers on the streets of Queens to sell her tabs to than wasting anymore of her time finding out what I might be into, besides also being into dropping acid like she was. But, although I was somewhat attracted to her physically and might have been interested in getting to know her better, because she also seemed a little too young at that time for me to consider getting involved with romantically, I wasn't that disappointed when she walked away from me in search of other customers. So I just shrugged and also continued my own walk in the opposite direction for a block or two before swallowing the tab of acid.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (66)
Barry seemed to enjoy his weekend job as a security guard in the basement cafe in the Queens College student union building. One reason might have been that he felt it was like being at a party with people only a few years younger than him, on the college campus where he had previously graduated from, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night; and, in addition, it seemed to provide him with more of a possibility that he could pick-up and "score" eventually with more younger "chicks" than did his Monday through Friday day job during the week as a delivery truck driver.
And after about a month working as a basement cafe security guard at the Queens College student union building, Barry invited me to check out the scene on one Saturday night.
"Why don't you check out the scene tonight?" Barry suggested.
"How can I check out the scene if I don't have a student I.D.?" I replied. "Without a student I.D., you're not allowed to even enter the Queens College student union building by the security guard in the lobby."
Barry laughed. "Just walk around to the backside of the student union building. There's an unmarked exit door leading into the sub-basement level of a stairwell there, that most people don't know about, which is always left unlocked. Just walk around to the back of the building, open the unlocked door and up the stairwell a half-flight of stairs and you'll be just down the hall from the basement cafe entrance--where I'll pretend to check your wallet and then let you walk by me."
"Well, if it's that easy for me to get into the student union building, I'll check it out sometime tonight," I said.
And after about a month working as a basement cafe security guard at the Queens College student union building, Barry invited me to check out the scene on one Saturday night.
"Why don't you check out the scene tonight?" Barry suggested.
"How can I check out the scene if I don't have a student I.D.?" I replied. "Without a student I.D., you're not allowed to even enter the Queens College student union building by the security guard in the lobby."
Barry laughed. "Just walk around to the backside of the student union building. There's an unmarked exit door leading into the sub-basement level of a stairwell there, that most people don't know about, which is always left unlocked. Just walk around to the back of the building, open the unlocked door and up the stairwell a half-flight of stairs and you'll be just down the hall from the basement cafe entrance--where I'll pretend to check your wallet and then let you walk by me."
"Well, if it's that easy for me to get into the student union building, I'll check it out sometime tonight," I said.
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