Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (11)

By the time Dylan decided to charge inflated prices for his initial 1970s live concerts, the post-World War II period of relative economic affluence for large numbers of U.S. white working-class baby-boomers had begun to end, gasoline for U.S. automobiles no longer only cost 30 cents a gallon and the Nixon-Henry Kissinger administration was (despite signing a peace  agreement with North Vietnam's government in early 1973--after bombing civilian targets in Hanoi during the Christmas 1972 season, while Joan Baez was visiting there on a peace mission) continuing to prolong the Vietnam War by shipping weapons to its puppet Thieu regime in South Vietnam, in an attempt to prevent a military victory by South Vietnam's National Liberation Front [NLF].

And, in addition, despite signing its 1973 agreement which promised that the U.S. government would pay reparations to the North Vietnamese government for all the destruction and deaths its post-1954 military intervention in Vietnam--in violation of the 1954 Geneva Accords--had caused, the Nixon administration was still refusing to begin paying the reparations it had promised to pay.

Yet, as a result of the late 1960s and early 1970s COINTELPRO and FBI political repression that was authorized by both the Democratic Johnson administration and the GOP Nixon-Kissinger administration, by the time Dylan launched his first mid-1970s live concert tour, 1960s Movement groups that had attempted to create Freedom Now!, Black Power! or a Black Revolution in the USA had generally been either destroyed, forced underground or split-up into competing factions; or else, forced to shift politically into a less revolutionary direction during the 1970s. And, by the mid-1970s, the Movement groups that had worked to create an end to U.S. imperialist military intervention overseas and to create a democratized affluent society in the USA, in which U.S. working-class youth of all racial backgrounds would be free of 9-to-5 wage slavery in the 1970s, had generally suffered a similar fate, to some degree.

In addition, by the mid-1970s, many Movement people and post-World War II baby-boomers had begun to realize that U.S. hip capitalists (like Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner, etc.) were apparently ripping-off and marketing for personal, individual profit much of the hip counter-culture and hip lifestyle alternative ideas that had been developed collectively by hip Movement, underground newspaper journalists and counter-cultural people of all racial backgrounds during the 1960s.

So what 1970s Movement folks like me considered most culturally distasteful about what Dylan appeared to be up to during his initial 1970s live concert tour was that--despite the early 1960s protest and topical folk songs he had written--the now over-thirty-year-old Dylan seemed to have turned into just another ageing, money-grubbing, hip capitalist entertainer who was into crass commercialism.

And in the 1970s, Dylan seemed to be now using his celebrity and media-reinforced hype to rip-off more money from the U.S. youth market of music fans, by now charging more for his live rock concert tickets than any U.S. rock star had previously charged. Instead of, for example, just doing a series of live concerts in the USA, on a non-profit basis, in which U.S. music fans could obtain concert tickets for free, or for only a minimal ticket price.  

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (10)

By the time it was announced that Dylan was going to do his Newsweek magazine-publicized first 1970s live concert tour in various U.S. cities, at venues like Madison Square Garden in Manhattan and at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, I had read Anthony Scaduto's earlier 1970s biography of Dylan, which had portrayed Dylan in a much less flattering way than nearly all of the many other biographical books about Dylan--written during the decades after he seemed to become one of the U.S. media conglomerates and U.S. Establishment's "court rock musicians" and "court singer-songwriter and court rock star aristocrats."

So I was not totally surprised when I heard that the apparently "on-the-make" careerist singer-songwriter who--who in his early 20's, during the early 1960s--had implied, in his writings and in the song lyrics of his, which Broadside magazine frequently published, that, like Woody Guthrie, he wasn't into money-making, was going to now require the U.S. music fans who wished to see him perform live again to pay an individual U.S. ticket price that was higher than U.S. music fans had then ever previously paid to see a live concert by any other 1960s or early 1970s U.S. folksinger, folk or rock singer-songwriter, folk group or rock group.

There was some speculation at the time that one of the reasons Dylan was requiring U.S. music fans to pay so much money for a ticket to one of his "comeback tour" live concerts--which were held not too long after the October 1973 Middle East War (in which the Egyptian government attempted to regain control of the Sinai Peninsula territory of Egypt that the Israeli military had illegally begun occupying following its surprise attack on Egypt which began the June 1967 Middle East War; and the Syrian government attempted to regain control of Syria's Golan Heights territory that Israeli's military also began illegally occupying in June 1967)--in order to provide the Zionist movement's regime in Palestine with some extra private funding to help pay for the cost of its October 1973 war actions.

And because there had also been some indication or speculation, during the early 1970s, that Dylan had become more sympathetic to the politics of the Zionist right-wing extremist JDL group--which Brooklyn's right-wing extremist Zionist Rabbi Kahane then led--and that Dylan falsely regarded the anti-imperialist, left-wing Black Panther Party [BPP] as "anti-semitic" (because the BPP supported the Palestinian people's national liberation struggle), a few Movement people did feel there was some actual basis for assuming Dylan's motive for his initial mid-1970s live concert tour was to raise funds for the Zionist groups or the Israeli government. 

By the early 1980s--despite Dylan disillusioning some more of his audience members, after he seemed to identify himself as some kind of "born again" Christian for awhile--Dylan's more open support for the Zionist movement's state of Israel became more evident after he wrote and recorded his pro-Zionist "Neighborhood Bully" song during the months following the Israeli war machine's June 1982 invasion and accupation of Lebanon.

And by the 21st-century, Dylan's decision to give a live concert in Tel Aviv, despite the call by Palestinian solidarity movement activists for him to express support for their anti-apartheid BDS campaign, by refusing to perform there, seemed to make it even more obvious where Dylan's political sympathies lay, with respect to supporting or opposing the Palestinian national liberation movement's struggle in the Middle East.

But when I was publicity-clerkin' for New American Library in the 1970s while Dylan was making his U.S. corporate media-promoted initial "comeback tour," the fact that Dylan had apparently been sent to Zionist movement-oriented summer camps as an early teenager and--unlike most U.S. anti-imperialist left and Black Liberation Movement activists of the late 1960s--had apparently not begun to oppose Israeli militarism and support the Palestinian liberation movement, was not generally realized or known by most of the Movement people who felt Dylan had pretty much sold out to the hip capitalist Corporate Establishment by the mid-1970s.

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (9)

During the same 1970s period when, in my 20's, I was living near the pre-gentrified Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook and working as a publicity clerk at New American Library, the by-then over 30-year-old Bob "Dylan" Zimmerman--after having pretty much stopped performing any live concert tours within U.S. imperialist society (while the U.S. war machine's attack on Vietnam escalated) when some of his early 1960s initial fans booed him at his 1965 and 1966 live concerts, for seeming to become more commercially-oriented and less Movement-oriented than he had previously been--began his new career as a "never-ending tour" performer.

Not surprisingly, by the time Dylan began performing live again and began his "never-ending tour," Establishment corporate media magazines (like the then-CIA-linked Washington Post Company's Newsweek magaine--which had published an unflattering article about Dylan over a decade before, when his songs were reflecting the concerns of U.S. New Left Movement groups) no longer viewed Dylan as being an anti-Establishment artist.

So in the 1970s the U.S. Establishment promoted Dylan's initial 1970s "comeback tour" by putting his photo on the cover of Newsweek magazine; and, at the same time, Newsweek published a flattering article about Dylan which publicized his initial 1970s live concert tour.

Between 1966 and his initial mid-1970s U.S. concert tour, Dylan could be seen performing live on television in front of Johnny Cash's tv show audience. But--aside from performing at a live concert paying tribute to Woody Guthrie at Carnegie Hall in January 1968 (after Woody's death in 1967), performing before a large audience at the Isle of Wight festival in the UK in 1969 and performing live at the 1971 Bangladesh benefit concert that George Harrison arranged--U.S. music fans had not been able to see Dylan performing live in front of them.

And between 1966 and his initial 1970s "never-ending concert tour" performance, the only new protest folk song Dyland had written that reflected a political issue that concerned most Movement people was the "George Jackson" song. But Dylan's "George Jackson" song was only written after one of the corporate media conglomerate book publishing subsidiaries had previously published George Jackson's Soledad Brother book, only after George Jackson's brother, Jonathan Jackson had been killed and Angela Davis had been arrested, and only after George Jackson was killed.

In addition, Dylan had only written the "George Jackson" song after the A.J. Weberman-led Dylan Liberation Front/Rock Liberation Front (which ex-Beatles member John Lennon supported for awhile) and Abbie Hoffman began criticizing Dylan for not writing new protest songs anymore and characterizing Dylan as a "cultural rip-off artist" who had personally enriched himself by ripping off the 1960s Movement counter-culture and collaborating with the U.S. establishment's CBS media conglomerate's hip capitalist Columbia Records subsidiary.

And only after A.J. Weberman's critique of Dylan's post-1966 political/artistic shift and money-making began to appear in publications like the East Village Other underground newspaper, the Yipster Times, the Village Voice, and even Rolling Stone magazine, as well as being increasingly discussed over some NYC radio stations like WBAI, did Dylan write and record the "George Jackson" song.

So because Dylan didn't write any song and release his record related to George Jackson's unjust imprisonment until after George Jackson was already killed, some Movement music fans speculated that Dylan mainly wrote the "George Jackson" song to try to minimize the growing number of people who were starting to agree with A.J. Weberman's early 1970s East Village Other articles, which were then-arguing that Dylan had sold out politically and artistically to the U.S. corporate Establishment.  

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (8)

Ironically, although I was unaware of District 65's history when I was one of its union members in the 1970s, this labor union had apparently been originally formed by leftist and/or Communist Party USA workers and organizers during the 1930s.

Apparently, its initial focus was to organize workplaces of less than 15 or 10 workers, which the existing CIO-affiliated union leaders felt had too few workers to be worth assigning their own organizers to recruit into their already existing industrial unions. And, as a result of merging for awhile with other unions during the 1940s and early 1950s, by the time I was working at New American Library in the mid-1970s, District 65's officials were also collecting union dues from some publishing firms and other corporations; based on the premise that certain individual clerical workers employed by these firms were occupying a clerical position that had previously been unionized by District 65 (or by a union District 65 had previously merged with), and were still now being represented by District 65.

Being a U.S. working-class person with anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist revolutionary New Left political beliefs, who was also interested in U.S. labor movement organizing and working to create a classless society in the USA in the 1970s, one would have thought that a District 65 union member like me would have tended to get involved more with District 65 activity; or to have tended to interact more with District 65's union office staff or officials at some point, when I was filling its unionized New American Library publicity clerk position.

But by the 1970s, the Old Left District 65 leaders--despite some of them still likely being "closet communists"--appeared to me to be not that much more democratic or less economist in the way they ran their labor unions or related to their rank-and-file District 65 members than were the U.S. labor union bureaucrats who undemocratically controlled the more anti-communist U.S. labor unions; despite the District 65 union bureaucrats likely being less corrupt and less politically reactionary than were the more anti-communist and more class-collaborationist U.S. labor union bureaucrats like George Meany and Lane Kirkland.

Aside from being invited, along with other new members who worked at other workplaces, to go to District 65's office further Downtown and attend a required orientation meeting for new members--where some elderly District 65  union staff members told us about the District 65-run union medical clinic that we were eligible to utilize for free if we needed to see a physician (which, being in my 20s and in good health at this time, except for occasionally getting a cold, I never needed to see, myself)--the District 65 staff members provided us new members no information about District 65's history and what its long-term economic and political goals were; and they showed no interest in learning what District 65's new members felt District 65's concerns and priorities should be.

And during the whole time I was purportedly being represented by District 65 at New American Library and District 65 was receiving dues on the basis of some historical bargaining with New American Library to get that firm to characterize the publicity clerk position as a unionized clerical job slot, I received no information about or any invitation to attend any District 65 membership meeting.

Despite some of its then-elderly leadership having been apparently involved in U.S. left movement politics prior to the 1950s McCarthy era that--in addition to seeking job security, health benefits and higher hourly wages for U.S. workers--also had envisioned creating a more democratic U.S. society in which the workweek was shortened, U.S. workers were more empowered at their workplace and politically, and the U.S. government would not be militaristic, District 65's union leadership in the 1970s now seemed unaware of the following historical reality:

By the mid-1970s, most anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist Movement supporters who were workers, who were born after WWII and who had grown-up during the more economically affluent 1950s wanted to create, in the 1970s, a classless, leisure-oriented society--in which U.S. workers were free of being trapped in 9-to-5 menial jobs and the division of labor that sentenced them to wage-enslavement.

And most post-WWII-born left Movement supporters who were workers in the 1970s wanted control of the corporate media workplace decision-making process (and/or book publishing firms like New American Library) to be in the hands of anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist left U.S. workers. In addition, post-WWII-born left Movement supporting workers in the mid-1970s wanted all the institutions in which District 65 members worked on a daily basis to be involved in rebuilding a 1970s Movement to oppose continued U.S. military intervention in Indochina and elsewhere abroad; and to be institutionally involved in working to create peace in the world by the 1980s, etc.  

 

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (7)

 The New American Library book promotion department director's assistant, whose desk was located not far to the left of my desk, when I was working as a New American Library publicity clerk, also wasn't very interested in talking much about either the mid-1970s world situation or the current political/economic situation within the USA, during the time I sat next to him during the workday.

Seeming to be in his late 40s or 50s, and more into dressing in a culturally straight suit and tie fashion than the younger, bearded white guy, who seemed to be in his early 30s, who was the promotion director he worked under, the white nearly middle-aged promotion director's assistant seemed mostly worried about being subtly pressured--by both the New American Library promotion director and the New American Library VP (who seemed to be in his late 30s)--into looking for a job at another company.

Apparently, these younger on-the-make executives wanted to substitute someone closer to their own age to fill the promotion department director's assistant job slot; because they felt the nearly middle-aged white guy who sat next to me was too old and over-the-hill. And was, in their eyes, apparently not particularly more successful than any other younger person they might hire from another book publishing firm likely would be in helping to increase the bookstore sales of New American Library's catalog of paperback books.

In addition, in their eyes, they apparently now felt he was too old to now "fit in" well with the other younger people who were involved in marketing the New American Library paperback books.

Most of the people who worked in the New American Library firm's skyscraper corporate office weren't members of any U.S. labor union in the mid-1970s. But when I was handed my first paycheck by the personnel manager's assistant--who had given me my typing test when I applied for the job and had had me fill out forms on the first day I reported for work, after being hired--I was surprised to be handed, along with my paycheck, a brochure indicating the New American Library publicity clerk job that I held was a unionized job. And that New York City's District 65 local union was receiving union dues which were being deducted from my paycheck.

Yet during the whole time I was working as a 9-to-5 wage slave in the District 65-unionized publicity clerk job slot at New American Library, I never encountered or spoke with any District 65 shop steward inside the skyscraper office or knew of any other District 65 union member who also filled a unionized job slot at New American Library.

Nor did any representative or organizer from the District 65 labor union office that was located further downtown in Manhattan, which was collecting dures from each paycheck I received for filling the unionized publicity clerk position at New American Library, ever make any appearance at my workplace--during the whole time my labor was being exploited at New American Library.

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (6)

 The publicity director's secretary, whose desk was only a few yards to the right of my desk, did occasionally converse with me during the workday, when I was putting in my 9-to-5 wage enslavement time as the New American Library's publicity clerk. But, aside from having the one common interest in being paid on time for spending five days a week a New American Library's office, I can't recall any other common interest that the New American Library's publicity director's secretary and I shared in the mid-1970s.

The New American Library publicity director's secretary (whose name I no longer recall after so many decades) was a white, affluent working-class or lower middle-class woman who seemed to be in either her late 20's or 30's in the mid-1970s. She also seemed culturally straight and socially conventional, as well unaware that a mass-based anti-war movement and anti-war counter-culture and a women's liberation movement had developed within the USA during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Unlike the younger assistant to the publicity director, the secretary of the publicity director still always wore a dress or skirt and blouse to work each day; and seemed  to have not graduated from a 4-year college. Wearing a bit of visible lipstick and make-up each day, the publicity director's secretary also seemed more interested in buying clothes, shopping and acquiring material goods in the mid-1970s than interested in books--despite the fact that she was working for a paperback book publishing firm.

The secretary to the publicity director didn't appear to be married yet, perhaps because even most conventional and culturally straight men about her age likely woud not have considered her particularly attractive on a physical, emotional or personality basis? But my impression was that she was still hoping to find some man to marry who had a job that paid a high enough salary so that she could quit her own job eventually and just become, in Westchester County, a stay-at-home mother, who just raised her children while her husband supported her and her kids.

My vague recollection is that on the rare occasions when some politically-related issue was mentioned while conversing with me, the publicity director's secretary's political perspective tended to reflect the political perspective of whatever the various Establishment politicians and Establishment corporate media news programs were then promoting.

So, not surprisingly, within a few weeks of me working as the New American Library's publicity clerk in the department in which she worked, the publicity director's secretary realized that I wasn't the type of man she found particularly attractive or interesting to work with.

And the longer I worked next to her, the more both she and I found it to be a drag working next to each other or conversing with each other during the time when she wasn't answering the telephone calls for the publicity director, that were shifted to her desk phone in order for her to copy down the messages the telephone callers wished to leave for the New American Library publicity director; or when she wasn't using the telephone on her desk to help the publicity director arrange primt media articles or interviews related to the paperback books that New American Library was then attempting to publicize and market.

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (5)

 So many decades later I can no longer recall the names of either the New American Library publicity director's assistant or the New American Library publicity director's secretary, during the time I worked in that paperback book publisher's Manhattan skyscraper office, as a publicity clerk in the mid-1970s.

The New American Library publicity director's assistant was a young white woman, who didn't seem very intellectual, in her early 20s, who apparently was fresh out of college. Despite her having long brown hair, a slim, youthful figure and generally wearing pants or blue jeans and dressing in a less culturally-straight-looking way than most women of the previous generation, she was still likely to have been considered just average-looking by most men and women in the 1970s; also, in part, because she didn't seem to radiate many friendly vibes, particularly.

The assistant to the publicity director had apparently been able to land this relatively high-paying job as her first job after graduating college and getting only a B.A. degree because, in part, her father apparently had some kind of high executive position elsewhere within the corporate media conglomerate that then controlled New American Library, as one of its subsidiary divisions.

Most of her workday seemed to consist mostly of sitting behind her desk telephoning or answering the telephone calls of the radio or television show producers involved in determining which New American Library paperback book authors would, or would not, be invited to appear as guests on corporate media radio or televisions shows; to talk about the writer's book. Or else, telephoning or answering the phone calls of the particular New American Library paperback book authors for whom she was setting-up or had scheduled radio or television show book-related interviews.

Perhaps because the publicity director's assistant always seemed busy and on the telephone during each workday--or perhaps because she was the kind of uppper middle-class classist white woman snob, who had been socialized to not converse much at the workplace with male clerical office workers whose jobs paid much less per week than her own did--I cannot, in retrospect, recall her ever conversing with me. Or even acknowledge my existence during the whole time I was employed as the New American Library publicity clerk--despite the fact that her desk against an office wall, but separated from my desk by the desk of the publicity director's secretary, was only about four yards to the right of the desk I sat behind in the same department.