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My daughter, China, was the hot, new
VJ on MTV this summer. My five-year-old son, Alexander,
was studying dinosaurs, giants, elves, computers and
learned to swim. And my twenty-three year old son,
Gareth, just moved into his first apartment, got a job
with an artistic construction firm, and was trying to
get his freaking VW running.
Me...I was in Managua, Nicaragua, playing “America”
and “Volunteers” on Sandinista Television (STV)!
What was I doing there, you might ask? “Another
commie dupe, off to Nicaragua,” the ever conservative
Young Republican might answer. Now, I’ve been called a
dupe for drugs, Black Panthers, Vietnam, even for Satan
(this, on Jim and Tammy’s PTL Club, about five years
ago, during the backward masking, devil talk craze that
swept through the religious right, like a fire in dry
grass...more on Jim & Tammy later).
Well, ‘el dupo’ is back from Nicaragua with a story
to tell.
[insert graphic here: My invitation to the 8th
Anniversary of the Revolution celebration in Matagalpa]
RENO 1:00 a.m.
Saturday 18 July, 1987
Our band, The Kantner Balin Casady Band had just
finished playing outdoors at the Sand Harbor Music
Festival at Lake Tahoe...in light snow flurries!...in
July!!. I wasn’t sure whether to take the snow as a
bad omen or a pleasant sendoff to what promised to be a
hot weekend in Nicaragua. I am a San Franciscan, born in
the Sunset District fog, and anything over seventy
degrees sends me into a panic.
“What do I do if I faint?”: I asked my doctor,
thinking of salt tablets or something.
“Fall down,” he laughed, telling me to stay in the
shade and to take a hat. Nonetheless, here I am in the
Reno airport, off to Dallas-Mexico City-Managua, in just
under fifteen hours of stop and go flying.
I get an amazing variation of looks and stares when
people find out I’m going to Nicaragua...the
eyes-wide-open stare, wondering if I was crazy...the
quick eye scan like I was a Communist or something...the
earnest, interested look -- “Oh wow,” the ticket
agent exclaimed, “Aren’t you Paul Kantner?”-- fan
stuff and the like. “I always loved you guys. What are
you doing in Nicaragua?”
Cynthia Bowman, the mother of my son, Alexander, even
sent me a post card saying, “Please don’t go. Love,
CB.,” worrying that her son would have no father after
Saturday. I gave them all the ‘Party’ line -- big
celebration of the Revolution, big International Book
Fair (you don’t think that Reagan would bomb Norman
Mailer, do you?...hmmm!?!), big 19 July ... a lot of
truth to that.
So there I am in the Reno airport. I’m wearing a black
T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Augusto Cesar
Sandino, the namesake of the Sandinista revolution, on
it. A conservatively dressed, Young Republican type came
up to me and, seeming to recognize Sandino’s picture,
sneered, “Who’s that on your shirt?”
“Tom Mix,” I countered immediately.
“Oh,” he said, immediately deflated.
“Yeah, I always liked him,” I smiled affably,
“...still do.”
Sandino’s hat is drawn like an infinity sign, with the
body of the hat symbolizing a volcano, of which there
are many, active, in Nicaragua.
[insert hat graphic]
It all started with the Clash, the English new wave
semi-punk band. I didn’t really take to them as much
as so many others did. I didn’t think that they sang
very well (people used to say that about Jefferson
Airplane). Their reputation as junkies, shamelessly
exploiting everything from Brixton to Sandinista left me
wary and suspicious of everything they espoused.
(Curiously enough, the Clash’s Mick Jones has a new
band - Big Audio Dynamite - that is right now my
favorite band on the planet.) And, I must admit, they
were far ahead of me in paying attention to what was
going on in Nicaragua.
Also, the Sandinistas themselves seemed on the verge of
betrayal of their revolution. Eden Pastora, the
charismatic and fearless ‘Commander Zero,’ had
abandoned them. He had been largely responsible for
developing the urban front of the revolution. In 1978, a
Sandinista commando unit, with a woman as one of its
leaders, and Pastora, captured the National Palace and
held the entire Somoza National Assembly for ransom,
demonstrating the power of the Sandinistas to roam even
downtown Managua at will. They got half a million
dollars, obtained the release of political prisoners,
including Tomas Borge, the current Minister of the
Interior, and they forced Somoza to publish the
Sandinista manifestos in his own newspaper. This
humiliated Somoza and caused many of the urban middle
class who were sitting on the fence, or who were afraid
to act or speak out, to support the Sandinistas. After
the revolution, Pastora came to oppose the ruling body
and took to the southern jungles to fight them.
The closing of La Prensa, the opposition newspaper, was
also a dark sign. Tales of civil rights abuses, as they
were reported here, in America, painted the Sandinistas
as revolutionaries who took over and became the very
thing that they had been fighting so fiercely.
And so I wrote, in 1981,
“If I was Sandinista
I would assassinate
Somebody who abused, abused, abused
His mighty, mighty privilege
But then somebody
Would assassinate me
For abusing...my mighty, mighty privilege!”
____ Jefferson Starship, 1982
The song was called, “I Came Back From The Jaws Of The
Dragon.” Perhaps, in full circle, I am returning to
the jaws of another dragon...I always tempt fate.
Someday, it may catch up to me, but I have always been
able to sense true danger (stupid danger) and back away
fast. This time feels no different, but even with the
cat, there are only so many lives. Let’s see, how many
have I used up? How many do I have left?
[insert graphic: Nora Astorga photo/AP note]
NORA
I first learned of Nora Astorga in 1983. She was my
first true, inspirational connection to the Sandinista
revolution. She has since been referred to as ‘that
Sandinista assassin’ by those who would paint her as a
‘commie,’ a guerrilla, a Sandinista! Her story
filtered to me like this:
She had been a corporate lawyer in Managua during the
Somoza regime...like Montgomery Street, but in Managua.
She was, and is, bright, beautiful, and the mother of
five children. She was also a Sandinista, working
secretly in the city. One of Somoza’s generals,
General Reynaldo Perez Vega, kept pestering her for a
date. He was the stereotypical South American general --
fat, ugly, big cigar and medals down to his cojones.
And, he was a brutal tool of the regime.
One day, she appeared to give in to his fervent pleas,
and invited him to her apartment. Four Sandinista
soldiers, however, were waiting, hidden inside her
bedroom closet. They intended to take him prisoner and
hold him hostage in return for the release of many
Sandinistas who were being held in Somoza’s jails by
the National Guard.. When they burst out of the closet,
the general got very macho and they ended up killing
him. At that point, Nora had to hide her children away
and flee into the mountains until July 19, 1979 -- the
‘Time of the Triumph,’ as the Sandinista victory is
called.
When Daniel Ortega consolidated the government, he
appointed Nora as ambassador to the United States (the
Sandinistas are very supportive of women as equal in the
workplace. Today, women work as soldiers, helicopter
pilots, TV camerawomen, government officials, taxi
drivers, and plantation managers; then, thirty percent
of the Sandinista fighters were women! They fought
alongside the men and feel they have earned their
independence ... Women Alive!).
Reagan turned down the appointment. It seems that the
dead general was a CIA contact and the State Department
didn’t take too kindly to his death. So what does the
FSLN (Frente Sandinista del Liberation Nacional) do?
They appoint her as the Nicaraguan representative to the
United Nations, an appointment over which Reagan had no
direct control. And it was that story that inspired me
to write the song, “Mariel” on our first KBC album..
“Mariel” included the dedication, “Then she turned
her eyes toward Earth / And remembered ancient war songs
/ Let the battle for Earth begin / Let the struggle for
Love begin.” I wrote the song as a tribute to her
struggle and to the spirit that courses through the
hearts of many Chileans and Salvadorans, Guatemalans and
Costa Ricans at this very moment. That spirit is growing
in Honduras as it did in Argentina. The streets of
Panama burn as I write.
And it’s not just Communists from Russia who are
causing it, as we’re being led to believe. It’s not
just wild-eyed terrorists and it’s not only Cuban
military advisers. It is grinding poverty and a brutal
U.S. foreign policy that has supported dictators like
Somoza and Batista (of Cuba) then, Pinochet (in Chile)
and Noriega (in Panama) now...the Marcoses and Shahs and
Bothas and Duvaliers of the world...the list seems to go
on forever. The U.S. seems to be on the wrong side
whenever the issues of democracy and civil rights come
into conflict with U.S. security needs vis-à-vis
communism...time after time after time and time again.
The spirit, this fight, this need to become their own
country is alive in Nicaragua. Reagan can’t stop it.
Jesus hasn’t healed it. Islam is a buffoon-like bully,
and Buddha doesn’t seem to care very much at all. It
is up to us -- WE THE PEOPLE! __ to help and to shed the
light of day on this situation.
In March of this year, I noticed in the Chronicle that
Nora was coming to speak at Glide Memorial Church (Cecil
Williams does it again). I immediately called our office
to arrange an invitation. This is one of the fringe
benefits of being in this rock and roll band -- access!
I send our record over to Vivian Hallinan, who is
helping to sponsor the speech, and I get invited to a
pre-speech cocktail party at the Lawyer’s Guild (more
commie dupes ?!?). Nora arrives and we are introduced.
She had heard the song and receives me warmly.
“I want to play in your country,” I say.
“Oh, please come. It would be delightful.”
‘ That was easy,’ I think. I smile at her
exuberance.
“You can come on July 19th, the anniversary of our
revolution. It will be a very exciting time. Your band
can play for our people at the celebration.”
“It would be our pleasure.” I beamed.
She moved on and I left to get something to eat before
the speech.
When I got back to Glide, the street was swarming with
contra supporters of all colors, held back behind
well-manned police barricades. Some were chanting, some
were screaming unintelligibly. I walked up to some of
them and asked amiably, “Why do you protest this?”
Sandinista murderers! Communista! Jesus save us!” came
various screams from the crowd.
“What about contras murdering children. They are
cowards,” I challenge. It was like they didn’t hear
me.
“Kill the communists!” -- more screaming, fists in
the air. So I walked across the street toward Glide.
“Contras are killers, cowards,” I yelled back
(smart, Kantner!). The screaming rose to a fever pitch
and I entered the church giving them the one-finger
salute with just the slightest apprehension at the
developing scene. One cop smiled as I crossed the empty
street. I smiled back. Thank god for the San Francisco
Police!
Nora delivered a passionate speech with just a hint of
shyness and I was given over to a slight welling of
tears at the spirit she conveyed. I left quickly as she
finished, to avoid the crush. The streets were empty now
and the fog had freshened the night as it can only do I
San Francisco. Viva!
As time goes by, Benjamin Linder becomes the first
American sympathizer to be killed in Nicaragua. Many say
he was executed, on orders from the U.S. government, in
order to discourage Americans from traveling to
Nicaragua. While the contras insist he was killed by
shrapnel or crossfire in a firefight, nothing has yet
explained the powder burns around the point-blank bullet
hole in the side of his head!
MARIEL
Woman moves like lightning
Her eyes glow like radium
She moves like lightning
Her face could fill a stadium
Her body moves like lightning
Her words strike like thunder
Is she a rock star?
In search of wonder ... in search of
LIGHT! ... in everything she does
LIGHT! ... in all the ways she moves me
LIGHT! ... in all of her body got
LIGHT! She got LIGHT
the light of >>
LOVE MAKES THE LIGHT SHINE BRIGHTER
LOVE MAKES THE WOLF GO AWAY
LOVE MAKES THE PEOPLE STRONGER
THE PEOPLE CHASE THE WOLF AWAY
Love is irrational
Love is madness
Love is not sensible
Delicious madness
Her body moves like lightning Her eyes
glow like radium
She moves like lightning Her words
could fill a stadium
A stadium like in Chile Her words
cause pandemonium
Poor people rounded up Murder in the
stadium
She could rouse the population With her
words of freedom
Her words strike like thunder
Disturb the nation
FEAR MAKES THE WOLF LOOK STRONGER
FEAR MAKES THE LOVE GO AWAY
LIGHT MAKES THE LOVE LAST LONGER
LOVE MAKES THE WOLF GO AWAY
And then I saw this woman she was moving in light
Her words could fill the stadium
Move the people
Pandemonium!
If we don’t care now
Chile could happen here
And if we don’t treasure love now
Darkness could happen here
But if we care right now
Chile won’t happen here
And if we treasure love now
Darkness won’t happen here
And Darkness Will Turn To Light
___ The Kantner Balin Casady Band
© 1986 Little Dragon Music BMI
Great Pyramid Music BMI
Super Ride music BMI
[insert graphic: Guitarra Armada - FSLN soldier
sitting with rifle and guitar]
Well...my band gets understandably itchy about my
proposal to play in Nicaragua. We had started our tour
at the Daytona Spring Break, an MTV promotion, and I was
calling this our ‘Daytona to Managua’ Tour’ -- an
exercise in extremes, black to white, alpha to omega,
party to PARTY! I can imagine some of the band
members’ wives saying to them, “You’re going where
with Paul?”
When I first brought this up, the band was a little
hesitant, but I encouraged them to go. Some agreed, some
remained silent. Then, in late April, Benjamin Linder
was blown away in Nicaragua. After the story broke, the
tide subtly turned regarding our band’s interest in
the trip...but I decided not to push it. I announced,
“Well, I’ll go myself,” still not quite sure of
what I was getting into. And I did ... and herein lies
the tale.
(Just before I left, the contras had attacked another
village, San Jose de Bocay, killing a woman and two
children in the process.)
MANAGUA 18 JULY
AERO PUERTO SANDINO
5:30 P.M.
I arrived in Managua at dusk. I had arranged to be met
by a government representative who would guide me
through customs, get me a place to sleep, and help with
translation. So I didn’t change any money. I just
walked through confidently. Except we didn’t cross
paths, and there I was, alone in the airport, with no
money for even a phone call, and only a smattering of
high school Spanish (“No habla Español / ¿Habla Inglés?”)
at my command. I must have looked forlorn in the heat
and humidity because a little five-year-old girl
approached me timidly and smiled. I smiled back and she
spoke a few words in Spanish to me.
“No habla Español,” I returned. She laughed gently
and looked back at her mother.
“¿Habla Inglés?” I asked her mother.
“No,” she shrugged. A young soldier approached me
with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.
“You are lost, señor?” He, too, had the nicest
smile and the demeanor of a helpful English bobby. I
barely took notice of the machine gun.
“No,” I sighed, “but someone from the ASTC (the
Sandinista Cultural Workers Association) was supposed to
meet me and I don’t seem to have connected with
them.”
The airport was alive with people arriving for the
International Book Fair, returning Sandinista soldiers,
newsmen, artists and volunteer workers from the U.S.,
there to work for the on their two week vacation;
like my seatmate on the flight down, Charlie Ballard, an
electrical lineman from San Diego, who told me he had
come because he was disgusted with what Reagan was
trying to do in Nicaragua. He had volunteered to come
down here and help in whatever work was needed. He was
headed for Matagalpa, along with fifty others from LA
and San Diego, to work in the fields. We promised to try
and find each other at the celebration the next day. (We
never did though, it was too crazy.)
A roughly debonair, independent news correspondent,
Scott Wallace, came up and asked me if he could help. I
told him my story and he directed me to a hotel across
the street where the Book Fair people were being housed.
He also gave me his phone number and said I could stay
at his place if I failed to make my connections.
It was at the airport hotel that I found my ‘guide,’
a very sweet and attractive young woman, Alexandra
Escudero. She was very apologetic about missing me
so I tried to ease her anxieties and told her I was fine
and not to worry. As we walked to our car, we were
joined by an older Chinese man who spoke no English. He
was introduced as the director of the visiting Fujian
Ballet company from the People’s Republic of China.
His interpreter joined up with us and we all piled into
our car and drove into the darkness of the countryside.
The adventure had begun.
Alexandra spoke fervently of The Revolution and of life
in Nicaragua. She was half-American, half-Nicaraguan. We
exchanged our histories and she told me that she had
worked for the A.S.T.C. for two years. She hadn’t been
back to the United states for seven months, and her
mother, who lived in Washington D.C., constantly feared
for her safety; but Alexandra had resolved not to return
home, so her mother would have to come down to Nicaragua
to see her the next time. The Chinese interpreter spoke
of life in China, ballet, and of how he hadn’t been
home for fifteen months, because of his work. He said
that he had yet to see his thirteen-month old daughter
and I thought back to my own children. I could not
conceive of not seeing them for that many months.
I offered them some doughnuts and cookies that I had
carried from Lake Tahoe. “God, I haven’t had a
doughnut for seven months,” Alexandra enthused, It was
a white powdered-sugar doughnut, and she delicately
consumed the entire thing, bite by bite.
The highway from Managua was heavily patrolled in order
to protect against contra attacks on the roads leading
to Matagalpa, the site of the celebration. At one point,
as we came around a bend in the road, I came face to
face with the leveled barrel of an immense anti-aircraft
cannon. Every ten miles or so, we were stopped by groups
of soldiers gathered around small, bright fires in the
coal-black night. They would ask for our papers and
waved us on cheerily when they saw our ASTC credentials.
People danced around burning tires in the small towns
along the way. The revolutionary celebration was
beginning in earnest. Everywhere there were pictures of
Sandino and Carlos Fonseca (the number two hero of the
country after Sandino...like our Thomas Jefferson; he
was killed during the revolution). They were painted,
daubed and charcoaled on shanty walls, public buildings,
private houses, even on cars. There were hundreds of red
and black eights emblazoned everywhere, commemorating
the eighth anniversary of the 19 July revolutionary
victory, the Time of the Triumph. And I also saw many
nines, in hopeful anticipation that they would, indeed,
live another year. I even spotted a few tens! FSLN flags
and banners were everywhere.
At one point, as I looked west, beyond the hills, I saw
faint flashes of light that reminded me of artillery
barrages in old, black and white war movies. It was not
until the drive back the next night that I learned that
it was heat lightning. I was relieved.
TO BE CONTINUED
Part Two - The Black Forest / La Selva Negra
postscript: the picture of the young boy with the
rifle at the beginning of these excerpts was taken by
Scott Wallace, mentioned herein. All usages are with his
permission...
I call it “Carbine Eyes”.
postscript>>> the song, “Carlos Fonseca”
POSSESSED
BY THE GOD OF FURY
AND
THE DEVIL OF KINDNESS
MY
WORDS GO OUT OF THIS JAIL
CELL
TOWARD
THE RAIN AND THIRSTY FOR LIGHT
I NAME YOU MY BROTHERS
IN MY HOURS OF ISOLATION
YOU COME TEARING DOWN
THE WALLS OF THE NIGHT
BRINGING LIGHT INTO THE DARKNESS
CH:
COMANDANTE
CARLOS, CARLOS FONSECA
EDUCAN VENCEDOR DE
LA MUERTE
NOVIO DE LA PATRIA
ROJA Y NEGRA
NICARAGUANTERA TE GRITE
PRESENTE !
I
REMEMBER THE DAY THAT WE
MET YOU
WITH
YOUR BLUE - EYED NEARSIGHTED
STARE
WITH
A STUBBORN ETERNAL DETERMINATION
FOR
US YOU'RE ALWAYS THERE
THE NEXT DAY AFTER WE
MET YOU
YOU WERE TYPING OUT WORDS
LIKE A HAMMER
AND YOUR POSTERS BLOSSOMED LIKE
FLOWERS
ON THE WALLS OF OUR TOWN
CH:
IN
THE JUNGLES DOWN IN ZINICA
A
BULLET TORE THROUGH YOUR HEART
AND
YOUR BLOOD EXPLODED AMONG US
INTO
OUR EVERYDAY LIVES
AND OUR FUTURE CHILDREN WILL
SEE
A NICARAGUA GLOWING AND FREE
AND REMEMBER YOU ALWAYS
WITH YOUR CARBINE EYES
AIMING FIRMLY TOWARD THE DAWN
[ LOS GENERACIONES VENIDERES
VERAN
NICARAGUA LIBRE Y LUMINOSA
VAN A RECORDARTE ETERNAMENTE
CON TU
CARABINA DISPARANDO AURORAS ]
CH:
Vaya con pasion
PK
SF
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