While Barry was watching his tv in the other room--or when he wasn't around the apartment and I was alone in the basement apartment--I would usually spend my time there practicing my guitar quietly, reading, or writing new folk songs. And it was in this basement apartment that I wrote the "Enemy Number One" protest folk song about the Weatherfugitives.
Another reason I avoided being in the basement apartment as much as possible on the weekday evenings or weekend times when Barry was most likely to be around in the kitchen-dinette watching tv or listening to Neil Diamond or Elton John vinyl record albums, was that--despite his use of pot and guitar-playing ability--Barry was not 1960's New Leftist and politically hip in his politics and philosophical views during the 1970's, as I still was.
Like me, Barry had been anti-war enough during the late 1960's to have avoided the Vietnam War Era draft, initially by obtaining a student deferment from enrolling in a college; although in Barry's case the college he attended was Queens College (not Columbia College and Richmond College on Staten Island, which, in addition to attending a Queens College summer session, I had attended)--which Barry commuted to while still living with either his parents or other relatives in Queens (unlike me, who had lived away from my parents while attending college, except for the time I spent 2 months taking 4 summer session courses at Queens that I needed to obtain a CUNY BA).
But once he was no longer a student at Queens College and was at risk for for being re-classified 1-A and drafted into the U.S. war machine, Barry had apparently decided to escape the U.S. draft by moving to Israel/Palestine (where his ex-cop and Zionist father had apparently previously moved to) and living in Israel until his high lottery number removed him from any risk of being drafted by the U.S. war machine.
After he was no longer at risk of being drafted, however, Barry then moved back to the United States again since--despite being raised by hard-core Zionist parents and having apparently had some success recruiting Israeli "chicks" for his "bull pen"" by playing guitar and performing covers of 1960's pop folk and rock songs in some Israeli coffeehouses--he still felt, as someone who had grown up in the United States who primarily conversed in English and who had been somewhat influenced by the non-Zionist U.S. counter-culture/hippie culture, alienated from the type of young people and the kind of Zionist society he had encounterd and experienced when living in Tel Aviv.
Yet because of his more hardcore Zionist family background and Zionist upbringing, Barry--unlike me--was unwilling to accept the fact that the democratic right of national self-determination for the Palestinian people had been unjustly violated by the Zionist movement's: 1. establishment of an Israeli state in Palestine in the 1940's; 2. its expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from Palestine in the late 1940's; 3. its military occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank territories after it launched the June 1967 Middle East War; 4. its refusal to allow the large numbers of of Palestinians who still lived in refugee camps to return to Palestine/Israel; and 5. its continued failure in the 1970's to yet negotiate directly with secular left Palestinian nationalist political groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], or the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine [DFLP), etc.
In addition, Barry--unlike me--seemed to prefer women who weren't feminist or sympathetic to the new wave of radical feminism that developed in the late 1960's and 1970's as the women he wished to be involved with in the 1970's. Apparently, none of the "chicks" that Barry had "scored" with or added to his "bull pen" in the late 1960's or early 1970's were radical feminist in their consciousness; and, for Barry, the women of his dreams and his fantasies were sill, in the 1970's, the women who looked most like those whose nude photographs appeared in the Playboy magazines that he had collected and kept stored in one of the basement apartment's closets.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (36)
The basement apartment I shared with Barry in the 1970's obtained very little sunlight from its small basement windows, was sparsely furnished, and contained a small bedroom where Barry slept, a small living room-turned bedroom where I put my mattress on the floor and slept, and a small kitchen/dinette where Barry and I, individually, ate. The small kitchen/dinette also functioned as a living room in which Barry would either spend his weekday evenings after work either watching tv shows on his portable tv set or playing Neil Diamond or Elton John vinyl record albums on his portable stereo. In addition, the basement apartment included a small bathroom/shower adjacent to a small closet in which Barry stored a big pile of all the back issues of Playboy magazine that he had purchased during the late 1960's and 1970's.
After I soon realized that Barry was more into spending his weekday evenings and his weekends, when at home, either watching tv shows or listening to pop and "cock rock" 1970's music that I considered to be apolitical, low-consciousness "schlock," rather than being interested in either playing guitar with me or reading books quietly, I pretty much tried to avoid being in the basement apartment on weekday evenings and weekends, when Barry was most likely to be around, as much as possible.
So instead of coming straight home after each 9-to-5 day of wage enslavement ended at 5 p.m., I would usually either eat a dinner out at some cheap fast food place or cheap restaurant, check out some local college campus scene during the evening, or spend the evening browsing in either the New York Public Library's Midtown Manhattan branch or Donnell Library branch or at the main branch of the Queens Public Library in Jamaica, which was located only a few blocks away from my basement apartment in Jamaica--until these libraries closed at 9 p.m.. And on Saturday and Sunday, I would usually leave the apartment in the morning and take the subway into Manhattan; and not return to the basement apartment until the evening.
Thus, since I was using the basement apartment mainly as a place to sleep, there were some weeks that Barry and I only interacted with each other for only a few hours each day most of the time, after the first few weeks of sharing the basement apartment has passed.
After I soon realized that Barry was more into spending his weekday evenings and his weekends, when at home, either watching tv shows or listening to pop and "cock rock" 1970's music that I considered to be apolitical, low-consciousness "schlock," rather than being interested in either playing guitar with me or reading books quietly, I pretty much tried to avoid being in the basement apartment on weekday evenings and weekends, when Barry was most likely to be around, as much as possible.
So instead of coming straight home after each 9-to-5 day of wage enslavement ended at 5 p.m., I would usually either eat a dinner out at some cheap fast food place or cheap restaurant, check out some local college campus scene during the evening, or spend the evening browsing in either the New York Public Library's Midtown Manhattan branch or Donnell Library branch or at the main branch of the Queens Public Library in Jamaica, which was located only a few blocks away from my basement apartment in Jamaica--until these libraries closed at 9 p.m.. And on Saturday and Sunday, I would usually leave the apartment in the morning and take the subway into Manhattan; and not return to the basement apartment until the evening.
Thus, since I was using the basement apartment mainly as a place to sleep, there were some weeks that Barry and I only interacted with each other for only a few hours each day most of the time, after the first few weeks of sharing the basement apartment has passed.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (35)
Unlike me, Barry didn't write his own songs; and he only knew how to play and sing cover songs. But, in the 1970's, he played his guitar at a more technically advanced level and in a more technically sophisticated way than I did; and he knew how to play a guitar using a finger picking style, rather than only by just using a flat pick, more rustic, primitive, mainly single chord-strumming accompaniment style, like the style that I relied on.
So at first, I then thought I might be able to possibly interest Barry in forming an Everly Brothers or Simon and Garfunkel-type 1970's duo, that would sing covers of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger folk songs, covers of early 1960's Dylan and Phil Ochs folk songs, and my late 1960's and 1970's original folk songs, in New York City area coffeehouses; and perhaps, eventually, even in some local Manhattan folk music club like Gerde's Folk City.
By the time I moved in with Barry, however, he was more into spending his evening weekday hours after work and Sunday evenings watching tv programs in the basement apartment kitchen, where his television set was located, than in spending much time practicing his guitar or singing songs in the basement apartment.
But a few weeks after I moved into the small, curtained-off living room/bedroom of the Jamaica basement apartment, Barry offered me one of his joints one evening, after he heard me practicing my guitar; and he then took out his own guitar from its case; and he then played quite skillfully for me his cover version of Dylan's "My Back Pages," while singing in a voice and style that sounded almost exactly like the way Bob Dylan sang the song on the "Another Side of Bob Dylan" vinyl album.
It turned out, however, that Barry in the 1970's was much more into liking and listening to the pop songs of more "AM consciousness" rock singer-songwriters like Neil Diamond and Elton John than into liking and listening to performers-songwriters like Dylan, Ochs, Seeger, Guthrie or Baez, as I was; and Barry was just interested in briefly showing off to me how he had performed a Dylan cover song, before he lost his interest in performing in public or singing cover songs at home, for his own entertainment, in his spare time.
Also, after I played and sang for him one of the original folk songs I had written, Barry seemed to focus more on how rudimentary my guitar-playing technique was relative to his, rather than on whether the melody and lyrics of the folk song might interest a 1970's audience. And he seemed to quickly conclude that there was no commercial or moneymaking potential in whatever song I might ever write; and that, since my guitar-playing technique wasn't equal to his, rehearsing songs or jamming with me much in his spare time would hold less interest for him than spending his spare time making money or looking for new "chicks" to add to his "bull pen."
So at first, I then thought I might be able to possibly interest Barry in forming an Everly Brothers or Simon and Garfunkel-type 1970's duo, that would sing covers of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger folk songs, covers of early 1960's Dylan and Phil Ochs folk songs, and my late 1960's and 1970's original folk songs, in New York City area coffeehouses; and perhaps, eventually, even in some local Manhattan folk music club like Gerde's Folk City.
By the time I moved in with Barry, however, he was more into spending his evening weekday hours after work and Sunday evenings watching tv programs in the basement apartment kitchen, where his television set was located, than in spending much time practicing his guitar or singing songs in the basement apartment.
But a few weeks after I moved into the small, curtained-off living room/bedroom of the Jamaica basement apartment, Barry offered me one of his joints one evening, after he heard me practicing my guitar; and he then took out his own guitar from its case; and he then played quite skillfully for me his cover version of Dylan's "My Back Pages," while singing in a voice and style that sounded almost exactly like the way Bob Dylan sang the song on the "Another Side of Bob Dylan" vinyl album.
It turned out, however, that Barry in the 1970's was much more into liking and listening to the pop songs of more "AM consciousness" rock singer-songwriters like Neil Diamond and Elton John than into liking and listening to performers-songwriters like Dylan, Ochs, Seeger, Guthrie or Baez, as I was; and Barry was just interested in briefly showing off to me how he had performed a Dylan cover song, before he lost his interest in performing in public or singing cover songs at home, for his own entertainment, in his spare time.
Also, after I played and sang for him one of the original folk songs I had written, Barry seemed to focus more on how rudimentary my guitar-playing technique was relative to his, rather than on whether the melody and lyrics of the folk song might interest a 1970's audience. And he seemed to quickly conclude that there was no commercial or moneymaking potential in whatever song I might ever write; and that, since my guitar-playing technique wasn't equal to his, rehearsing songs or jamming with me much in his spare time would hold less interest for him than spending his spare time making money or looking for new "chicks" to add to his "bull pen."
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (34)
Barry was a mixed bag culturally and politically in the 1970's. On the one hand, he was the son of a retired New York City cop who, also being a hard-core Zionist, had moved to Palestine/Israel a few years after the Israeli government's military victory in its June 1967 war--despite being born in either Europe or the United States rather than in Palestine--following his retirement from the NYPD. On the other hand, Barry was somewhat counter-cultural in his lifestyle, had not supported the U.S. government's military intervention in Vietnam in the 1960's, played the guitar well enough to have performed at some Zionist-sponsored coffeehouses in Queens and in Tel Aviv during the late 1960's and early 1970's and smoked pot. In addition, he also preferred to get his survival bread by doing blue-collar work during the day as a delivery truck driver in Queens who did not have to dress up each day--rather than by trying to get some white collar job in some Manhattan office building in which he'd have to dress up in a suit and tie each workday and be stuck inside a 9-to-5 office cubicle.
Like me, Barry's childhood had been spent growing up in a Queens neighborhood in which most families were of Jewish religious background. But unlike me, Barry had not lived in the Midwest during his teenage years. And practically nobody who grew up during the 1950's and early 1960's in a Queens neighborhood in which most families were of Jewish religious background had fathers who were cops, since--for historical reasons--people of Jewish religious background in New York City tended to see NYPD cops (who were then mostly white men who were Irish-Americans or Irish immigrants in background), as either men who held low-status, unattractive--but necessary--jobs or as agents of oppression.
Because his father was also a hard-core Zionist, Barry--unlike me--had apparently gone to Zionist day camps or Zionist sleep-away camps (rather than to non-Zionist Boy Scout sleep-away camps like I had), as a child. And during his teenage years Barry had, during his after-school weekday hours and weekends, been involved in some Zionist teenage groups in Queens.
So by the time Barry enrolled as a commuter student in Queens College in the late 1960's, he already was part of some social network of Zionist teenagers from which he obtained what he described in the 1970's as "his bull pen" of "chicks;" who apparently were often initially attracted to him after they heard him play his guitar and sing Israeli folk songs or covers of 1960's folk and pop songs at Zionist-sponsored social gatherings or coffeehouses.
Like me, Barry's childhood had been spent growing up in a Queens neighborhood in which most families were of Jewish religious background. But unlike me, Barry had not lived in the Midwest during his teenage years. And practically nobody who grew up during the 1950's and early 1960's in a Queens neighborhood in which most families were of Jewish religious background had fathers who were cops, since--for historical reasons--people of Jewish religious background in New York City tended to see NYPD cops (who were then mostly white men who were Irish-Americans or Irish immigrants in background), as either men who held low-status, unattractive--but necessary--jobs or as agents of oppression.
Because his father was also a hard-core Zionist, Barry--unlike me--had apparently gone to Zionist day camps or Zionist sleep-away camps (rather than to non-Zionist Boy Scout sleep-away camps like I had), as a child. And during his teenage years Barry had, during his after-school weekday hours and weekends, been involved in some Zionist teenage groups in Queens.
So by the time Barry enrolled as a commuter student in Queens College in the late 1960's, he already was part of some social network of Zionist teenagers from which he obtained what he described in the 1970's as "his bull pen" of "chicks;" who apparently were often initially attracted to him after they heard him play his guitar and sing Israeli folk songs or covers of 1960's folk and pop songs at Zionist-sponsored social gatherings or coffeehouses.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (33)
From his day job during the 1960's, my Iranian immigrant landlord in the 1970's had apparently been able to save and earn enough money to buy his house in Jamaica, Queens and obtain a mortgage loan from a New York City bank. And he had apparently then turned some of his house's extra rooms and its basement into separate/divided-up residential units; which he then rented to tenants, while he lived in a separated section of his house and continued to earn money from his day job.
Aside from Barry and me, most of the Iranian immigrant landlord's then tenants seemed to be single, apolitical Iranian men in their 20's who had come to the U.S.A. to be foreign students in local New York City colleges. Barry's previous roommate, for example, was an apolitical, secular, good-natured Iranian guy in his late 20's, who dressed tweedishly, and who had first come to the U.S.A. on some kind of foreign student visa. He had been renting the basement apartment with another Iranian student who moved out, prior to agreeing to let Barry move in and rent/share the basement apartment as his new roommate.
The reason Barry had needed to find a new roommate before I moved in with him was because this previous roommate was now moving out in order to live with his U.S.-born and raised American womanfriend--a middle-class, culturally straight white woman in her 20's, who was probably also considered physically attractive by most culturally straight U.S.-born men--in her much more modern Village area apartment in Downtown Manhattan.
Aside from Barry and me, most of the Iranian immigrant landlord's then tenants seemed to be single, apolitical Iranian men in their 20's who had come to the U.S.A. to be foreign students in local New York City colleges. Barry's previous roommate, for example, was an apolitical, secular, good-natured Iranian guy in his late 20's, who dressed tweedishly, and who had first come to the U.S.A. on some kind of foreign student visa. He had been renting the basement apartment with another Iranian student who moved out, prior to agreeing to let Barry move in and rent/share the basement apartment as his new roommate.
The reason Barry had needed to find a new roommate before I moved in with him was because this previous roommate was now moving out in order to live with his U.S.-born and raised American womanfriend--a middle-class, culturally straight white woman in her 20's, who was probably also considered physically attractive by most culturally straight U.S.-born men--in her much more modern Village area apartment in Downtown Manhattan.
Friday, July 31, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (32)
The owner/landlord of the house in Jamaica near Hillside Avenue, in which the basement apartment I wished to share and rent with Barry was in, was an Iranian immigrant man who appeared to be in his late 40's; and who spoke English fluently, with only a slight foreign accent. He apparently had been living in the United States since either the late 1950's or 1960's, dressed in a Westernized way like most culturally straight native-born men his age in the United States dressed in the 1970's, and did not seem to be any more into religion than most people his age who had grown up in the United States.
Having first learned in 1966 that the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] had illegally overthrown the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in 1953, after his anti-imperialist nationalist administration nationalized the foreign transnational oil corporations that had been exploiting Iran's oil resources since the days of overt British imperialist rule (and having also later read a Monthly Review book about Iran's post-1953 history under the repressive regime of the Shah of Iran), in the 1970's I realized why some Iranians--especially politically dissident and anti-dictatorial secular Iranian nationalists, liberals, leftist, professionals, workers and students--might find it more desirable to live in the USA rather than in Iran under the Shah.
Also, in the 1970's I still remembered a long conversation I had had one evening in 1967--on Broadway near Columbia University's campus--with an Iranian man in his late 20's or early 30's who was a graduate student at Columbia in which, in a very cautious way, he confirmed my observation that Iran under the Shah's rule was a police state, in which large numbers of the Shah's political opponents and journalistic critics were being held as political prisoners; and that the U.S. government's policy of supporting the Shah's dictatorial regime was an immoral, undemocratic policy.
So I assumed that the owner/landlord of the Jamaica house whose basement apartment I was seeking to share and rent with Barry was opposed to the Shah's rule. But the immigrant Iranian owner/landlord seemed cautious about ever discussing Iranian politics whenever I happened to hand him cash for his rent, in the months after Barry first introduced me to him; when he then quickly agreed to let Barry choose me as Barry's new roommate and for me to be his new additional basement apartment tenant.
Having first learned in 1966 that the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] had illegally overthrown the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in 1953, after his anti-imperialist nationalist administration nationalized the foreign transnational oil corporations that had been exploiting Iran's oil resources since the days of overt British imperialist rule (and having also later read a Monthly Review book about Iran's post-1953 history under the repressive regime of the Shah of Iran), in the 1970's I realized why some Iranians--especially politically dissident and anti-dictatorial secular Iranian nationalists, liberals, leftist, professionals, workers and students--might find it more desirable to live in the USA rather than in Iran under the Shah.
Also, in the 1970's I still remembered a long conversation I had had one evening in 1967--on Broadway near Columbia University's campus--with an Iranian man in his late 20's or early 30's who was a graduate student at Columbia in which, in a very cautious way, he confirmed my observation that Iran under the Shah's rule was a police state, in which large numbers of the Shah's political opponents and journalistic critics were being held as political prisoners; and that the U.S. government's policy of supporting the Shah's dictatorial regime was an immoral, undemocratic policy.
So I assumed that the owner/landlord of the Jamaica house whose basement apartment I was seeking to share and rent with Barry was opposed to the Shah's rule. But the immigrant Iranian owner/landlord seemed cautious about ever discussing Iranian politics whenever I happened to hand him cash for his rent, in the months after Barry first introduced me to him; when he then quickly agreed to let Barry choose me as Barry's new roommate and for me to be his new additional basement apartment tenant.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (31)
It was while working at Bulova in Woodside that I began living in a basement apartment in a house near one of the IND subway stops on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens.
On one of the hallway bulletin boards in the Queens College building where the college's academic library was located, an index card had been posted by the tenant of this basement apartment, who was a white guy in his 20's named Barry, indicating that he was looking for a roommate with whom to share the rent and living space of the Jamaica apartment.
After noticing the index card, which also indicated how relatively low was the monthly rent required to share the apartment would be, I telephoned the phone number on the index card and arranged to meet Barry in his basement apartment after work on the following evening. And the following evening, after seeing that I was also a white guy in his 20's like him, was employed, could immediately pay in cash both a month's security deposit of my half of the rent and half of the current month's overdue rent, and didn't seem to be a gay man (during a 1970's decade when homophobia was much more widespread that it would later be by the second decade of the 21st-century), Barry decided that I would be an appropriate roommate for him. Especially since the index card he had posted in the hallway bulletin board at Queens College had not produced any other callers about the apartment; and he did not want to have to spend any of his money purchasing some kind of newspaper ad in the classified want ad section of the Village Voice, in order to find a new roommate.
It wasn't until the 1990's--when internet sites like Craig's List started providing a cheaper way for people in their 20's who needed a roommate to find prospective roommates in their 20's--that there developed a simpler and cheaper of finding a roommate in his or her 20's than by just posting an index card on some local campus bulletin board for free.
On one of the hallway bulletin boards in the Queens College building where the college's academic library was located, an index card had been posted by the tenant of this basement apartment, who was a white guy in his 20's named Barry, indicating that he was looking for a roommate with whom to share the rent and living space of the Jamaica apartment.
After noticing the index card, which also indicated how relatively low was the monthly rent required to share the apartment would be, I telephoned the phone number on the index card and arranged to meet Barry in his basement apartment after work on the following evening. And the following evening, after seeing that I was also a white guy in his 20's like him, was employed, could immediately pay in cash both a month's security deposit of my half of the rent and half of the current month's overdue rent, and didn't seem to be a gay man (during a 1970's decade when homophobia was much more widespread that it would later be by the second decade of the 21st-century), Barry decided that I would be an appropriate roommate for him. Especially since the index card he had posted in the hallway bulletin board at Queens College had not produced any other callers about the apartment; and he did not want to have to spend any of his money purchasing some kind of newspaper ad in the classified want ad section of the Village Voice, in order to find a new roommate.
It wasn't until the 1990's--when internet sites like Craig's List started providing a cheaper way for people in their 20's who needed a roommate to find prospective roommates in their 20's--that there developed a simpler and cheaper of finding a roommate in his or her 20's than by just posting an index card on some local campus bulletin board for free.
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