No Planet B - Part Nine
or, The History of the World Backwards
July 2006
New Model Army Putney Debates 1649
During the English Revolution there are a group of revolutionaries who want neither King nor Cromwell to rule them, but see the earth as a common treasury for all. Known as True Levellers and the most populous faction of the New Model Army and are gathered tonight at a hall in Putney. Among their number are Colonel Thomas Rainborough, Richard Overton and Gerrard Winstanley from the Diggers commune and squatter camp on George's Hill. And Winstanley now addresses the clandestine candlelit meeting.
WINSTANLEY: While looting dead King Charlie's secret library I found this antique parchment hidden behind a framed portrait of Elaine Brown of the Black Panther Party that I bring to you here in Putney in the hope that we may learn from their struggle against tyrannies old how we in our time may defeat tyrannies new.
Now, before reading this out, I should warn you that some of the time this document uses language which is very different from what we speak today. But we know all about that sort of thing from our own time when John Milton started using the words 'thou' and 'thee' 'cos he'd been listening to Kaiser Chiefs. So this be The Last Testament of the Black Panther Party.
Because we had advocated direct action they took away our right to vote.
Came the economic downturn and blacks got the blame. For having changed the economic system which had been going such great guns of course. The Man claimed the Panthers' threatened secession of black colonies from the United States was affecting the dollar price.
All we had left was support in our own communities so they began to break that up. They began forcibly to relocate us and made us live in special ghettos until these became fashionable and we had to move out again.
We continued to implement Point 11 of the Black Panther Party Program but relied upon armed force to do so. And we knew one day that when we heard tanks rolling into Hunter's Point it would mean The Man done gathered the disaffected, rootless, causeless crackerjacks and blown them right back at us, and that all we had worked for had failed.
'But they did not fail!' cries Colonel Rainborough. '99% of air travel had ended by 1950. Otherwise we would not be here in Putney so close to the river!'
Aye, but at what cost? asks Winstanley. For there's one last section. [reads]
Now in a revolutionary situation reactionary forces will be unleashed as well. We knew that. But, we thought, what's the worst that can happen? It's not like things could get any worse for black people than they were by 1965. I mean how could that be!
Well, we first glimpsed how bad things would be for we people when Robert Johnson...
BACK-PROJECTION: ROBERT JOHNSON AND GUITAR
...came back from the crossroads and told us of a conversation he had had with the Devil. Turned out the Devil had tried to sell his soul to Robert Johnson. When he said I already got a soul, the Devil said:
"Well, I know that but you're gonna need this one."
"Why?" asks brother Robert. "What's so special about your soul, Satan?"
"This and no other model will do for you."
"Oh yeah?"
"Uh-huh", said the Devil.
"And just why might that be, Satan?"
"Ain't it obvious?"
"No it is not."
"Well, I'll tell you."
"Please do."
"It has survived hell."
"How much you charging? What's it's gonna cost, then?"
"How would you feel about changing your name to David Gray?"
1588 The Globe Theatre
Shakespeare is rehearsing his new play with the actors Wil Kempe and Richard Burbage. The play is based on a manuscript which Shakespeare found in a ruined Great Western train-carriage rotting on a stranded bridge overlooking the millions of skeleton cars on the M25 rustbelt near the Thurrock Services heritage site. The manuscript turned out to be a rare copy of Thomas Hardy's first novel "John and Teresa" which was based on the true story of two lovers who lose touch in the London Blitz of 1945-39 war. But in Act IV, Shakespeare tells the actors, the action now shifts from London to Spain where, in 1938, John's search for his long-lost wife has taken him into the jaws of the Spanish Civil War. And in this scene, says Shakespeare, John is on the point of abandoning his search for Teresa, when he has an unexpected stroke of luck. In a crowded market square in Barcelona, he passes a six-year-old boy playing a tune John knows well on the ukulele.
PEPE: (Rob plays "Slow Love" on uke, and sings)
No camino lento hay un guerra
Andamos despacio basta ya,
Gente dicen somos retrasados,
Venga ver la luna siega
JOHN: You've got a deep voice for a six-year old. How now boy, who taught you that song?
PEPE: My mother. My mother taught me that song.
JOHN: [Aside] His mother! Yes, the boy's just the right age. Teresa has a son, and maybe, thinking me dead, a new husband, too. - And where is your father, boy?
SPANISH BOY: Are you a spy? For which side come you to fight?
JOHN: I think I may know your mother.
SPANISH BOY: Where does she live?
JOHN: Pass me the ukulele, chico. [Sings and strums a line or two from "Slow Love"]
SPANISH BOY: You may see her in Calle 24 today, but we are moving soon. No more can I say. She may take me away from the war. To a safe place far away.
Act IV scene iii
A cafe on the corner of Calle 24, Barcelona. John and his comrade-in-arms and travelling companion Laurie Lee.
LEE: We are down to our last twelve dubloons. And the ferry is five a-piece. But lo!
Enter Teresa and boy carrying a long rolled-up banner across the street,
laughing as it sags in the middle. Exuent.
JOHN: Didst not think she looked happy?
LEE: Why spake ye not? Call to her now!
JOHN: Yea. Happy in her new life.
New songs in a new tongue to teach a son,
While I her quondam mate
Am all musty ballads of the old pattern.
But there's no matter. This late sight leaves me glad.
Is't not strange?
Keep you the purse, kind Laurie,
For sail through Bay of Biscay home.
I'll to Gernika and for Spanish farthings busk,
There to seek a frontline trench
And as pistolero shape a world
Which has so far shaped me.
Come on, old friend, tomorrow we must part
Be merry for our time of stay is short!
Exuent.
Enter again.
SHAKESPEARE: It needs a better couplet at the end. More snappy. More of a flourish. What about?
Come let's away,
Fortune tarries not for those who stay.
Exuent.
Enter again.
SHAKESPEARE: [raps] Last night's a P-R-O-B-L-E-M,
You got let him know and let him know this is the end.
He's been kissed, dissed, listed as a dum-dum,
I hope he likes said songs: he's gonna hum one!
Exuent.
Act IV scene iv
A caravanseri on the road from Barcelona to Gernika. John busks for his supper to other travellers in the starlit courtyard.
SONG: WALKING TO GERNIKA
1.
I've got so much sadness running around in my heart
I just seen the woman who was mine,
Now I'm older, wiser but I'm all alone
How I wish the road ahead was the road behind!
[chorus]
We been headed in the wrong way
All through time,
Always living in the wrong place
Running for our lives.
Walking to Gernika
All the livelong day,
I'm walking to Gernika
Where my luck will change.
2.
I just seen Teresa here in Spain.
I just seen the wife that I once wed,
As I walk this lonely road to Gernika
How I wish the road behind was the road ahead!
[chorus]
3.
Where the human race is headed I ain't got what they're gonna need.
I got no right to pass on these much-to-timid genes.
So give me one day's ration
And a blanket and a gun,
Like an old Comanche
When the winter trail's begun
Gonna be a pistolero,
Gonna fight for Spain,
Gonna fight for the republic,
I hope that freedom has its day.
But I won't be there to see it
'Cos I'm gonna catch a bullet,
See I been headed the wrong way
All my life.
And that, says Shakespeare, is all I've written so far. I've got writer's block. You see I was on a roll but then I foolishly read Robert Newman's novel "The Fountain At The Centre Of The World" and now I just feel totally inadequate as a writer.