Spain's Blue Division

More war!  Oh boy!  And yes, Nazis are involved…in a way.

 When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, he needed some help, as the Russians had far more men than the Germans.  Using his political muscle, he convinced the Finns, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, and Spanish to contribute forces to the mix, not counting the volunteers who flocked to the Waffen SS, or turncoat Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Armenians, and other locals who weren’t too thrilled with Stalin and were willing to fight against him alongside the Germans.

 Unlike the Hungarians and Romanians, however, the Spanish unit was completely volunteers.  In fact, Franco was not keen on sending forces.  Without a doubt, there is no way Franco could have won in Spain without Hitler’s help.  German Ju-52s airlifted Franco’s army from Morocco to Spain, and the Condor Legion helped give Franco air superiority; German weapons and advisors were also extremely critical in securing the Fascist victory.  Yet when it came to reciprocate for Hitler, Franco was extremely reluctant.  Basically he walked out of the German restaurant without paying for his high quality schnitzel, schnapps, and a nice little BJ under the table from Helga. 

 But these men were eager to serve.  Why?  These were Falangists who were (A) grateful to Hitler for helping the Generalissimo eradicate the plague of communism from Spain, and (B) hated communism enough to go to the frozen swamps of North Russia to fight the Red Army.  Just as the Waffen SS veterans serving in the French Foreign Legion in North Vietnam saw that conflict as an extension of their own battles on the Eastern Front in WWII, so did these Spaniards view the battle against the Red Army as an extension of the prior battle against communists in Spain in their own civil war, which had ended just two years before.  In other words, what Franco was unwilling to do, these men were. 

 Sidetrack on anti-communism.  These days it seems “communist” and “socialist” are terms bandied about recklessly by Republicans, used to describe not only true socialists like Michael Moore, Ralph Nader or Paul Wellstone, but also moderate liberal Democrats, including our own beloved Chocolate Jesus.  And with the debacle of the Vietnam War, and Joe McCarthy’s defeat in the 1950s, the liberal establishment has quite effectively discredited anti-communism as a viable political agenda in the US.  Legitimate refugees from communist dictatorships, such as Cubans escaping from Castro’s regime or the boat people from Vietnam, are pretty much ignored or written off as cranks.  The Nazis remain perpetual bad guys, but when it comes to Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, the general attitude is, “what’s the big deal?”  Yet there is a thick volume, the Black Book of Communism, which chronicles the heavy body count of communist atrocities from the Russian Civil War (1917-22) all the way to the present day, with a natural focus on the USSR and Red China.   I don’t recall Spain being included, mainly because the communists failed to win the Civil War.  That doesn’t mean the PSUC didn’t have blood on its hands, not merely Falangists and Carlists, but innocent civilians, priests, nuns, monks, and even their fellow travelers of moderate socialists and anarchists (e.g. crackdown on POUM in Barcelona in May 1937).  While the Falangists had their own crimes to answer for, Stalin’s minions in Spain were competitive in brutality and ruthlessness.   To the Falangists of the Blue Division, communism was a very real threat, a very tangible octopus of evil, with its center in Moscow.  Having cut off a tentacle in Spain, the obvious next step was to slay it at home, in Russia.  

Their initial leader was General Agustin Munoz Grandes, who was well loved by his own troops and respected by the Germans.  The unit operated in Army Group North, in the Leningrad sector, and was heavily mauled in the battle of Krasny Bor in 1943.  The units were never large, and had no strategic impact, but they fought hard, fought well, and impressed both the Germans and the Russians with their skill and determination.  This was even more impressive due to the horrendous cold and snow, and nasty summer swampy weather (with mosquitos and malaria), a climate completely alien to Spaniards and unknown in Spain or its colonies. 

Avenue Q

A few weeks ago, actually on Christmas Day itself, my girlfriend and I went into Manhattan, to Times Square, and waited in line for an hour in the cold [an experience which convinced us to forgo the traditional “freeze your ass off in Times Square on New Year’s Eve” nonsense 6 days later] to purchase tickets to this off-color, off-Broadway piece, which is an extremely naughty, hilarious and clever parody of Sesame Street.  My first choice, Spamalot, has long been gone from Broadway, and I wasn’t keen on “Mama Mia” (ABBA) or any of the other alternatives. 

 One weird thing about this is, unlike Sesame Street, the puppeteers are actually visible onstage.  But like zoning out on crowd noise and aural imperfections on bootlegs, you eventually reach the point of ignoring the puppeteers and focusing on the puppets themselves.

 Like “South Park”, the show tackles various controversial issues in an irreverent and funny way.  “It Sucks to Be Me”, “Everyone is a Little Bit Racist” (sung by a Gary Coleman impersonator), a song slamming the Internet as primarily about porn, sung by Trekkie Monster (3 guesses as to which Sesame Street character he parodies) and even a Bert-like gay character in heavy denial – but who is so obviously gay that coming out of the closet is a surprise to only himself (the Ernie character, above left, is actually straight).  Finally, not to give it away, there is actually some wild puppet sex (fortunately the Bert character is not involved).  It’s a little more targeted and sophisticated than “Crank Yankers”.  Bottom line?  Excellent adult parody of “Sesame Street”, for those who like “South Park” and can handle these issues.  Leave the kids at home!

Insane? Blame Rock

They say I'm crazy, but I have a good time.
I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime.
Life's been good to me so far.

Joe Walsh, “Life’s Been Good”

 After that brief madness from fever last week, I’m brought back to music and reality, including Pink Floyd and Hawkwind.  So the topic is: rock and insanity, focusing on the craziest people in popular music.  And by that I mean truly insane, not “Keith Moon drives Rolls Royce into swimming pool” or “Brian Jones dresses in SS gear”, or even “Marilyn Manson installs fake tits in his chest”, outlandish behavior by rock stars who may do things we non-rock-stars would consider …ill-advised…but who really can’t be considered insane by any legitimate analysis. 

 Syd Barrett.  Bar none, the top “acid”/”rock” casualty, but Toby Manning (writer of The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd, an excellent guide on Pink Floyd) astutely points out that (A) some bizarre cult has developed around Syd, and (B) Syd’s actual musical output was rather thin.

            Syd acted as Pink Floyd’s original musical genius for most of Piper of the Gates of Dawn and two major singles, “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” in 1966-67.  Then during a disastrous US tour, Syd started behaving erratically.  By 1968 David Gilmour was in, replacing his school chum, and Syd was reduced to “Jugband Blues”, his only tune on the second album, A Saucerful of Secrets.  Soon he was out, but resurfaced for a brief, eerie visit to the studio in 1975 when Floyd were working on “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”.  Gilmour tried to help him with his solo material, with modest success.

            Reading the Manning book, and the more I read about Syd (much of which I’d read before, from other sources, such as Mason’s book) the more it occurred to me that Syd’s madness might not be 100% sincere.  I start with his extreme eccentricity at making his solo material AFTER the others had kicked him out of Floyd, especially that “Have You Got It Yet” tune, which really seems like he was f**king with them deliberately. 

            Look at who was the #1 co-conspirator on this stuff: GILMOUR, the guy who replaced him.  I can just imagine Syd thinking, “ok, you bastards.  You hijacked and stole this band from me, the band I created, and now you want to throw me this bone of helping me on my SOLO material.  F**k off!”  A bit like a Randite character refusing to give “the sanction of the victim” (e.g. Rearden refusing to sell them the Rearden Metal and saying, “go ahead and take it, I won’t help you pretend this is a voluntary transaction”).

            So then the response (from Waters or Mason) to this is, “listen, Syd.  We tried to work with you.  But you were impossible.  Like this business of playing the song perfectly in rehearsal and blanking out ON AIR, then back to perfect on rehearsal again.  Or giving Pat Boone the silent treatment.  You know what we’re talking about.”

            Syd’s response?  “It’s MY band.  I’m the artist.  I’m entitled to be difficult, especially if you’re putting us on ‘Top of the Pops’ or ‘American Bandstand’, that inane crap for the masses of teeny boppers who can’t possibly understand what we’re all about, all they can relate to is ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’.  You’re trying to make Floyd a POP band and that’s NOT what we’re all about.  I had to sabotage it because it was turning into something completely different than it was supposed to be.  I had to destroy the band to save it.  This madness was feigned all along, just an act.  I can handle the acid; that was never the problem.  The real problem was Floyd’s success on terms I don’t agree with.” 

            Well, none of the albums they made immediately after Saucerful were particularly pop-oriented or calculated to sell lots of records, they were highly experimental.  It was Dark Side which clearly blew it all up.  Maybe Syd saw that coming.  Who knows.  While I know that The Wall was based on Waters’ own experiences as a successful rock musician and as a boy growing up in post-war England without a father, it’s hard not to see Syd in the Pink character who trashes his apartment, lapses into catatonia, then emerges as a fascist demagogue (ok, that part may be pure Waters). 

            Whatever the case was, Syd retired to almost complete seclusion with his mother in Cambridge, not even seeing his fellow band members, until his death in 2006. 

 Robert Calvert.  To me Syd gets too much attention, and Bob Calvert gets too little, but then again I’m a huge Hawkwind fan and probably always will be.  Calvert was definitely over the deep end, but contributed to the ‘Wind’s 70s stage act, often dressed in pilot’s gear on stage.  Lemmy describes him in sympathetic terms in White Line Fever.  His Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters concept album – about the West German Luftwaffe’s disastrous fighter-bomber, the Starfighter – was practically a Hawkwind album, and contributed several songs to HW’s live set: “Ejection” and “The Right Stuff”.  With Hawkwind, he was on Space Ritual, Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music (produced by…David Gilmour!), Quark, Strangeness and Charm, the Hawklords album, and PXR5.

 Peter Green.  The original guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, before the Rumours era broke them loose to the big time.  Back then, FM was a blues band with no commercial pretenses.  I like “Oh Well”.  Green went nuts and fell out of the spotlight for ages, only resurfacing fairly recently with a resurrected music career.

 Roky Erikson.  The guitarist/singer of the 13^th Floor Elevators, an Austin, Texas psychedelic band from the late 60s.  He fried his brain on too much acid, was committed to an asylum, where he endured electro-shock therapy.  I’m not sure exactly how far he’s recovered, but he’s making music again.  I like to refer to 13FE as “Iggy Piper”, a punky cross between the first Floyd album and the Stooges.

 Section 8.  “Section 8” is the “Catch 22” insanity exemption for the military, famously invoked by Max Klinger (Jamie Farr) in “M*A*S*H”, cross-dressing in an unsuccessful attempt to get a discharge and sent home.  As mentioned above, Marilyn Manson’s behavior is 100% shock value.  Likewise, I don’t think Axl Rose is insane.  To me, Rose simply suffers from “adult immaturity syndrome”, i.e. he’s a petulant asshole who does whatever he feels like and deliberately cultivates a persona of jaded, difficult rock star to attract attention -  because if he showed up on time at studios and concerts and played the music as expected, or released Chinese Democracy after 4 years and not 14, he fears no one would worship him as AXL and he’d be just another musician.  Boo f**king hoo.  Slash still wears the goofy hat and perpetual sunglasses, but he’s cleaned up his act and hasn’t been consigned to oblivion.  Get a clue, Axl.

Sick Again

For the first time I can recall, I got the flu.  I’ve had fevers and colds in the past, but never the dreaded combination of the two. 

 Fever.  High temperature – something from 99 to 101.  When I was very young, I had a fever so high I became delirious.  That was an unpleasant experience: a nightmare which continued with your eyes open when you were wide awake, from which there was no escape.  From then on the Universal Pictures logo would make me nervous. 

            Since then, I’ve never had a fever go that high, and the closest to delirium I’d get would be a greenish tinge to everything, even with my lenses out.  I have noticed that Excedrin Migraine makes a dramatic difference, dropping the temperature by 2 degrees and making me feel much more normal.

            Other unpleasant aspects are a general feeling of weakness and fatigue, as if every single cell in your body was at half strength, and a deep chill, resulting in intense shivering, despite being inside with the heat on and wrapped in warm clothing.

            Finally, there is the “same dream over and over again” deal, hardly being able to sleep as I drench the bed soaking wet in sweat, until the fever finally peaks and breaks.  Again, not particularly pleasant.

 Cold.  A cold usually starts out with a sore throat, which is easily remedied with aspirin or Tylenol.  Later comes stuffy nose, coughing, then runny nose, with sneezing thrown in.  It tends to last a week or two.  Unlike a fever, which gives an overall impression of “out of it, on another planet”, a psychological as well as physiological impact, a cold merely seems to be a physical inconvenience.

 A cold, to me, is mostly a nuisance, and won’t keep me from work, from play, from going out and about.  I might not work as hard at the gym as I otherwise would, but it’s not a big deal.  A fever, though, may keep me at home for the first day or so until it begins to taper off.  Illnesses always seem to hit strong and hard, yet taper off in severity gradually.

 What to do?  Well, one thing I don’t do is go to the ER or even urgent care.  Instead, I stay home and self-medicate on aspirin or whatever.  I really hate forced idleness; staying in bed sick is not my natural inclination.  But if I’m stuck at home, I’ll find something to do.  This time around I watched all of “Life on Mars” on DVD, all 4 discs of the single season in the US.  Years ago I had the rare occasion where I was both snowed in AND had a fever, plus I had just borrowed the extended versions of Lord of the Rings on DVD – a LOTR marathon for the remarkably rare opportunity where you can watch 10 hours of hobbits nonstop.  Or another time, I had purchased 3 Tom Clancy books, which I had never read, by some strange coincidence the day before I was struck down with a fever.