Lynching Put on Hold/Wolfman Caught Lyin' Like Dog

A Poem by Abel Meeropol
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

The Wolfman Faux Paux Caught by Languagehat
No, no, Billie Holiday didn't write the poem "Strange Fruit" like I led off yesterday's post with--WRONG--cut off one of my fingers. The poem was written by a Jewish schoolteacher from New York City (DeWitt Clinton High School in duh Bronx), Abel Meeropol. He published the poem in a New York City teachers publication under the pseudonym of Lewis Allen. He wrote after seeing the photograph of a young black man lynched (swinging from a tree) down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Then one night he heard Billie singing at the Cafe Society and after the show he showed her his poem, she liked it, and she and Sonny White, the pianist, turned it into a song.

Abel Meeropol was a member of the Communist Party and was an active protester at the time of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's payment for their sins against We the People of the US of A, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, remember that?--though, also remember, we love killing animals in this country and since people are animals, we love killing ourselves, too, and we love reading books about killing and we love movies about killing and teevee shows about killing, the more gruesome the better. The photograph Meeropol saw is very haunting--this nice-looking black man hanged from this big tree with several white trash men lounging around in the back and a little white trash swamp young girl with a soda or something in her had looking dumb as she is at the dude taking the flash photo.

Billie Holiday in her book Lady Sings the Blues intimated that the song was written for her especially and that she had a hand in maybe reworking the lyrics. Meeropol denounced her version when the book came out saying that the poem was his and Billie simply was the first to sing it and record it in 1939.

I should have known; don't I say all writers are fiction writers and all fiction is lies. Hemingway when called a lyin' son of a bitch said, "Well, what do you expect, I'm a fiction writer."

Anyway, I have my hat in my hand as I stand before old Abel Meeropol's ghost who is berating me something fierce. Abel's even saying he was a songwriter, too, Frankie Sinatra did that song of Abel's--very patriotic song that I can't remember the name of it--too busy to look it up, and Abel's ghost has given up on me, but anyway, since Abel was a songwriter, too, then maybe he could have written the music to "Strange Fruit," too. Billie Holiday is a liar, though who cares, "Lie to me, Billie, it's beautiful when you lie."

My brother who was a close friend of Artie Shaw's once ask Artie if he'd ever made it with Billie and Artie refused to say, only saying he and Billie were "intimate" friends and spent a lot of time together talking (maybe the second definition of "conversation")--my brother said normally, Artie didn't mind talking about the women he'd attracted during his fabulous life when he was on top the swing band heap, making movies in Hollywood, having any woman he wanted out there, getting Ava Gardner and then Evelyn Keyes (the woman who he seemed to like the best, though they were divorced years ago). (Per my brother who died 2 years before Artie died, so neither can back me up on this--take my word for it--yeah, like Billie Holiday really wrote "Strange Fruit"--take my word for it.)

Holy cow, I'm thinking, what if everything I think I know is a lie--that means, hell, I'm a lyin' son of a bitch.

Hats off to l hat. I can't pull the wool over his eyes--he's known me too damn long. He knows every wolfish trick I got in my repertoire of wolfish tricks. "Hey, Rocky, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?" Bullwinkle reaches in and pulls out a roaring lion. "Whoops, wrong hat."

Troy Davis Gets 90-Day Reprieve From Being Lynched in Savannah, Gee A
The Gawjah (read: Georgia) State Pardons Board after 9 hours of deliberation and testimonies has put off Brother Davis's death for 90 days while they examine the evidence and decide whether his death sentence should be reduced to life imprisonment without parole or life imprisonment with parole. Davis still insists he's innocent. The Georgia Supreme Court will rule later on a separate appeal just filed that would throw the death sentence trial out and agree to a new trial. How complicated our laws are. That's because they are made by 2nd-rate lawyers like most of those in Congress, hell, isn't that most of Congress? Even Hillary's a second-rate, second-story lawyer.

So no lynching in Georgia tonight. Sorry. I know; we are desperate for another state killing; we want to watch! Yeah, I know a couple of white supremists who wish they would televise these deaths.

Speaking of Gawjah and death by electrocution, tapes were released yesterday by the State of Georgia that were made during executions in the big Gawjah ee-leck-trick chair (is that a "Colored Only" sign hanging over that chair?). These were tapes played at the hearing that banned executions by electrocution in Georgia due to its cruel and unusual punishment. These tapes show that of the several electric chair executions taped several of them were botched and the condemned wouldn't die. "Hey, I wanna see those tapes. Are they on YouTube yet?"

No, but you can go on YouTube and see Billie Holiday singing Abel Meeropol's "Strange Fruit."

And Also in Gawjah
Wasn't Gawjah where the 17-year-0ld kid is facing 15 years in prison for getting a consensual blowjob from a fifteen-year-old girl at a party? Trouble is he was videoed getting the job and then the vid was shown all around the town and the Great White Fathers and Legal Minds down there in the deep south considered that child pornography. GUILTY! So ruin a 17-year-0ld young man's life, you Gawjah Yahoos, and then go down to the whorehouse and get your nightly blowjob from that young thang who you have no idea how old she is down there. Is that a camera I hear running somewhere?

thehumbledgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler