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Among his tales of police brutality and revolutionary fervour, Seale inserted a chapter entitled ‘Huey Digs Bob Dylan’. The setting is the home of radical lawyer Beverly Axelrod in 1966: Newton and Seale are laying up the pages for the first issue of their party newspaper, cunningly titled The Black Panther. ‘While we were laying that paper out, in the background we could hear a record, and the song was named “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Bob Dylan. Now the melody was in my head... but I didn’t really hear the words. This record played after we stayed up laying out the paper. And it played the next night after we stayed up laying out the paper. I think it was around the third afternoon that the record was playing. We played that record over and over and over.
‘Huey P. Newton made me recognize the lyrics. Not only the lyrics of the record, but what the lyrics meant in the record. What the lyrics meant in the history of racism that had perpetuated itself in the world. Huey would say: “Listen, listen – man, do you hear what he is saying?” Huey had such insight into how racism existed, how racism had perpetuated himself. He had such a way of putting forth in very clear words what he related directly to those symbolic things or words that were coming out from Bobby Dylan. ‘I remember that the song got to the point where he was talking about this cat handing in his ticket and he walked up to the geek, and the geek handed him a bone. Well, this didn’t relate to me, so I said: “Huey, look, wait a minute, man”. I said, “What are you talking about a geek? What is a geek? What the hell is a geek?” And Huey explains it.’
Newton’s explanation runs for almost a page: ‘“a geek”, he tells Seale, “is usually a circus performer”, who has been badly injured and can’t work any longer. But he knows no other life than the circus, so he agrees to do the lowliest jobs just to stay in the community. Maybe he even agrees to eat live chickens in a cage as a freak attraction.’ Newton continues: ‘These people who are coming in to see him are coming in for entertainment, so they are the real freaks. And the geek knows this, so during his performance, he eats the raw chicken and he hands one of the members of the audience a bone. ‘Then to put it on the broader level, what Dylan is putting across is middle-class people or upper-class people who sometimes take a Sunday afternoon off and put their whole family into a limousine, and they go down to the black ghettos to watch the prostitutes and watch the decaying community.(...) That makes the middle-class and upper-class people, who are down there because they get pleasure out of it, freaks.
And this goes into the one-eyed midget. What is the one-eyed midget? He screams and howls at Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones doesn’t know what’s happening. Then the one-eyed midget says, give me some juice or go home. And this again is very symbolic of people who are disadvantaged. They’re patronizing Mr. Jones, the middle-class people. You know, they’re not interested in them coming down for entertainment. But if they’ll pay them for a trick, then they’ll tolerate them, or else they’ll drive them out of the ghettoes. This song is hell. You’ve got to understand that this song is saying a hell of a lot about society.’
Seale digests this explanation, and notes: ‘Bobby Dylan says, you don’t know what’s happening, do you, Mr. Jones? And to hand him the naked bone was too much – was really too much.’
An insignificant if amusing interlude, you might think, suggesting that Huey P. Newton missed his vocation as a literary critic. But as Seale explains later in the chapter, ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ came to occupy a key place in the imaginative landscape of the Panthers: ‘This song Bobby Dylan was singing became a very big part of that whole publishing operation of the Black Panther paper. And in the background, while we were putting this paper out, this record came up and I guess a number of papers were published, and many times we would play that record. Brother Stokely Carmichael also liked that record. This record became so related to us, even to the brothers who had held down most of the security for the set.
http://www.judasmagazine.com/pages.asp/ ... gettj1.asp
HUEY DIGS BOB DYLAN
Later we moved to Beverly Axelrod's house to finish the paper. This was about eight or nine blocks south of the Haight-Ashbury district over in San Francisco. It was a nice, big house, and we moved over there for room and space, and to get things together. We righteously got it together. Eldridge and Barbara Auther were pounding out some articles.
We called up a white Mother Country radical photographer, got him together, and asked him to shoot some pictures of Huey because we knew it was necessary for us to try and get a centralized symbol of the leadership of black people in the black community. We had to centralize it in some way, so we decided on a picture of Huey. This photographer came over with his cameras and his tripods, and Eldridge set the scene. The photographer took a number of different shots. We got a wicker chair and African shields, and we had a shotgun over there, and Eldridge said, "Take the gun and put the spear here." He artistically put that picture together that everyone sees of Huey P. Newton sitting in the chair, with the shotgun and the spear, and the shields sitting on each side of the chair.
The shields were very important, because Huey was articulating that we use the spear and the shield, and the shield is very significant. Huey would say many times that a long, long time ago, there was a man who invented a spear, and he frightened a whole lot of people. But, Huey said, the people invented a shield against the spear. The people weren't so frightened after all. So this is really what Huey P. Newton symbolized with the Black Panther Party - he represented a shield for black people against all the imperialism, the decadence, the aggression, and the racism in this country. That's what Huey P. Newton symbolized with us. That's the way we projected it. The headline of the Party paper was THE TRUTH ABOUT SACRAMENTO, because there were so many lies about the Black Panther Party, and the Black Panther Party in Sacramento. Lies by the regular mass media - television and radio and the newspapers - those who thought the Panthers were just a bunch of jive, just a bunch of crazy people with guns. Many and many an Uncle Tom and our backward brainwashed black men had a misconception about the whole thing, when you get down to it.
While we were laying that paper out, in the background we could hear a record, and the song was named "Ballad of a Thin Man" by Bob Dylan. Now the melody was in my mind. I actually heard it, I could hear the melody to this record. I could hear the sound and the beat to it. But I really didn't hear the words. This record played after we stayed up laying out the paper. And it played the next night after we stayed up laying out the paper. I think it was around the third afternoon that the record was playing. We played that record over and over and over. Lots of brothers stayed right over there with a lot of shotguns for security. It was a righteous security in those days. There wasn't any bullshit.
Huey P. Newton made me recognize the lyrics. Not only the lyrics of the record, but what the lyrics meant in the record. What the lyrics meant in the history of racism that has perpetuated itself in this world. Huey would say: "Listen, listen - man, do you hear what he is saying? " Huey had such insight into how racism existed, how racism had perpetuated itself. He had such a way of putting forth in very clear words what he related directly to those symbolic things or words that were coming out from Bobby Dylan. The point about the geek is very important because this is where Huey hung me.
I remember that the song got to the point where he was talking about this cat handing in his ticket and he walked up to the geek, and the geek handed him a bone. Well, this didn't relate to me, so I said: "Huey, look, wait a minute, man." I said, "What you talking about a geek? What is a geek? What the hell is a geek?" And Huey explains it. He says, "A geek is usually a circus performer. Maybe he was an experienced trapeze artist who was injured. He's been in the circus all his life and he knows nothing else but circus work. But he can't be a trapeze artist anymore because he's been injured very badly, but he still needs to live, he needs to exist, he needs pay. So the circus feels very sorry for him and they give him a job. They give him the cruddiest kind of job because he's not really good for anything else. They put him into a cage, then people pay a quarter to come in to see him. They put live chickens into the cage and the geek eats the chickens up while they're still alive . . . the bones, the feathers, all. And of course he has a salary, because the audience pays a quarter to see him. He does this because he has to. He doesn't like eating raw meat, or feathers, but he does it to survive. But these people who are coming in to see him are coming in for entertainment, so they are the real freaks. And the geek knows this, so during his performance, he eats the raw chicken and he hands one of the members of the audience a bone, because he realizes that they are the real freaks because they get enjoyment by watching what he's doing because he has to. So that's what a geek and a freak is. Is that clear?
"Then to put it on the broader level, what Dylan is putting across is middle-class people or upper-class people who sometimes take a Sunday afternoon off and put their whole family into limousine, and they go down to the black ghettoes to watch the prostitutes and watch the decaying community. They do this for pleasure, or for Sunday afternoon entertainment. Of course the people are there and they don't want to be there. The prostitutes are there because they're trying to live, trying to exist, and they need money. So then that makes the middle-class and upper-class people, who are down there because they get pleasure out of it, freaks.
"And this goes into the one-eyed midget. What is the one-eyed midget? He screams and howls at Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones doesn't know what's happening. Then the one-eyed midget says, give me some juice or go home. And this again is very symbolic of people who are disadvantaged. They're patronizing Mr Jones, the middle-class people. You know, they're not interested in them coming down for entertainment. But if they'll pay them for a trick, then they'll tolerate them, or else they'll drive them out of the ghettoes. This song is hell. You've got to understand that this song is saying a hell of a lot about society."
The white society and the middle-class society are surprised to see that black people will pimp chicks on the block. They come down that way because they looked at black people as freaks. They thought black people were in a big freak bag. They thought they had niggers all figured out. But black people were not even niggers. Black people were not backward and apathetic.
Huey says that whites looked at blacks as geeks, as freaks. But what is so symbolic about it is that when the revolution starts, they'll call us geeks because we eat raw meat. But the geek turns round and hands Mr. Jones a naked bone and says, "How do you like being a freak?" And Mr. Jones says, "Oh my God, what the hell's going on?" And Bobby Dylan says, you don't know what's happening, do you, Mr. Jones? And to hand him the naked bone was too much - was really too much.
Eldridge Cleaver explains in Soul On Ice that the black man has been led around by the white man, the white omnipotent administrator primarily - big businessmen who manipulate and bullshit and control the government. The black man has been led around, and was projected as being led around, with a little piece of string, cord string, that could be broken in a minute. The string was tied around the black man's neck, and the black man was projected as a big gorilla. He was a gorilla. He was inhuman, and he couldn't talk. He's not supposed to be able to think. But the gorilla beats on his chest and says, "I'm a man."
One of the symbolic things that Eldridge was pointing out with this thing was that Cassius Clay said: "I'm the greatest" - the symbolic thing of him beating on his chest. He said in fact, "I'm a man." He said, "I'm a strong man." What shocked the racists, what shocked the omnipotent administrator, is that he looked up at the big gorilla. The string had been broken and he saw this gorilla beating on his chest saying, "I'm a man." That was Cassius Clay.
Cassius Clay would brag. People misunderstood the bragging. All Cassius Clay was saying was that he was defying all this omnipotent, racist bullshit by stepping forward and saying, "I'm the greatest! I can't be hit." He beat on his chest, and when he said that, the white racist omnipotent administrator who had a hold on the string had to ask himself, "Well, if he's a man then what the hell am I?" And that's what Bobby Dylan meant by the geek handing Mr. Jones the naked bone and saying: "How do you like being a freak?" And that's the whole meaning of the question. If he's a man, if he's not a freak, and he tells Mr. Jones he's a freak, then Mr. Jones has to ask, "Am I that?" That's symbolic of saying that if he's a man, what am I?
This song Bobby Dylan was singing became a very big part of that whole publishing operation of the Black Panther paper. And in the background, while we were putting this paper out, this record came up and I guess a number of papers were published, and many times we would play that record. Brother Stokely Carmichael also liked that record. This record became so related to us, even to the brothers who had held down most of the security for the set.
The brothers had some big earphones over at Beverly's house that would sit on your ears and had a kind of direct stereo atmosphere and when you got loaded it was something else! These brothers would get halfway high, loaded on something, and they would sit down and play this record over and over and over, especially after they began to hear Huey P. Newton interpret that record. They'd be trying to relate an understanding about what was going on, because old Bobby did society a big favor when he made that particular sound. If there's any more he made that I don't understand, I'll just ask Huey P. Newton to interpret them for us and maybe we can get a hell of a lot more out of brother Bobby Dylan, because old Bobby, he did a good job on that set.
by The Consul » Sun Feb 18, 2018 6:55 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:02 am
by Cordelia » Sun Feb 25, 2018 9:16 am
by Laodicean » Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:20 pm
Joe Hillshoist » Sat May 04, 2013 1:58 am wrote:Laodicean wrote:
I was just reading this thread and thinking of that little bit of gold.
The juice dudes are awesome.
I always think of this song whenever these debates start up.
Guns are like any other magical talisman, the more of your power you invest into them the less you have in yourself.
by Iamwhomiam » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:47 pm
by Cordelia » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:24 pm
by Cordelia » Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:54 am
by Laodicean » Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:06 pm
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