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Bevirt, Ron
Equipment Hassler
Prankster photographer on bus trip
Prankster, on the bus
Born: 10-20-39


(http://wild-bohemian.com)

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Brian Flanagan is a former member of the American radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

Columbia University

During the 1960s, Flanagan attended Columbia University in New York, where he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society(SDS). Flanagan studied philosophy and economics at Columbia where he was a C student. Whatever passions academics failed to arouse, however, the rising opposition to the Vietnam War supplied. "That was the turning point for me," he says. "Being in New York, being at Columbia during the Vietnam War, you could not be oblivious to what was going on. People were lining up on one side or the other. And so I took my stand." Flanagan was one of the members that helped seize the mathematics building on the Columbia University campus. The 1968 Columbia Student Revolt involved students shutting down the campus by seizing buildings to attract attention for their cause. SDS confronted the university's involvement with the Institute for Defense Analysis, who provided research the military used in Vietnam, and the university gym located in Harlem, which would not benefit the African-American neighborhood population. In 1969, Flanagan joined Weatherman, a radical splinter group of the SDS, later known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

Days of Rage

On October 8, 1969, Weatherman staged its first act of public aggression, at a rally in Chicago called the Days of Rage. The rally was staged in opposition to the Vietnam War, and its slogan was "Bring the War Home". Members gathered at Grant Park to listen to speeches by SDS leaders about Che Guevara and the world revolution. The rally turned to the streets of Chicago, where participants vandalized businesses, smashed car windows and blew up a statue of a policeman known as the Haymarket statue. During the rally, Flanagan had a physical encounter with then 35-year-old lawyer Richard Elrod that left Elrod with a broken neck and partially paralyzed from the neck down. Both men report different testimonials of what transpired that day. Flanagan stood trial for "attempted murder, aggravated battery, felonious mob action, and resisting arrest" and was acquitted on all charges.  Michael Rollins, a reporter for WCFL who was interviewing Elrod just before Elrod broke away to chase Flanagan, supported Flanagan's description of what happened. Although he told his story to the police and the state's attorney's office, he was never called before the grand jury. Richard Hinchion, 43, an insulating contractor from Munster, Indiana was another eyewitness supporting that version.

Weather Underground Organization

On March 6, 1970, Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins, and Ted Gold, members of Weatherman died in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion when a nail bomb detonated after members purchased two 50-pound cases of dynamite. It was explained later that the bombs were to be detonated at a non-commissioned officers' dance at [Fort Dix].  In an interview, Flanagan suggested that he helped one Weatherman member, Kathy Boudin, who later served 22 years in prison for felony murder and robbery, flee New York City after police investigations placed her in the townhouse during the time of the explosion.  Following the townhouse deaths, many members of Weatherman went into hiding, forming Weather Underground Organization, said to be responsible for a series of bombings of US state and federal buildings between 1970 and 1975.

In the documentary film The Weather Underground, Flanagan admits to participating in Weather's bombings during the 1970s. During a memorable moment in the film, Flanagan states, "When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some horrific things".  After resurfacing from the underground, Flanagan joined Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the above-ground wing of Weather Underground Organization.  Like many members of the Weather Underground Organization, Flanagan was never jailed for his involvement due to the illegal evidence-gathering tactics of the FBI's COINTELPRO program.

Foreign Travel

The FBI surveillance files on Weatherman reported that on October 20, 1970 Flanagan was in Algeria meeting with Eldridge Cleaver, exiled Black Panther Party leader. While in Algeria, Flanagan also met with Jennifer Dohrn, the sister of Bernardine Dohrn, along with Steward Albert and Jerry Rubin, two members of the Yippies.

Post-Weathermen life

In the 1990s, Flanagan played pool on a professional billiards circuit and worked as a carpenter and bartender. In 1996 he won $23,000 as a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy!  Flanagan continued his interest in trivia, hosting a weekly trivia contest at his bar, the Night Café in Manhattan, which he ran for fifteen years. Forced out of the space due to increased rent, the Night Cafe closed in September 2007.


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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According to Kesey, he had been throwing the I Ching one night in Manzanilla, a resort town north of Guadalajara, when a sudden electrical storm had blown in from the Pacific. "What's next?" was the question Kesey had asked the Ching. "I can't spend the rest of my life eating frijoles and dodging federales. What should I do?" And before he could even consult the answering hexagram, "there was lightning everywhere and I pointed to the sky and lightning flashed and all of a sudden I had a second skin, of lightning, electricity, like a suit of electricity, and I knew it was in us to be superheroes and that we could become superheroes or nothing."

And from this epiphany, which, like all LSD illuminations was a little difficult to explain in real time, had come Kesey's latest fantasy, the Acid Test Graduation. A symbolic ritual that would prepare the way for the next step. The Pranksters would rent a space and put on an actual graduation ceremony, with valedictory orations from Cassady and Babbs, and authentic sheepskins, and when it was all over "the graduating acid heads will take off their caps and gowns and display next year's superhero costumes." Hopefully there would be six, maybe even seven thousand graduating acid heads, costumed from head to toe, and in the confusion Kesey would slip in, accept his diploma, and then slip away without attracting the notice of his pursuers, who were sure to be out in force.
It was a grand fantasy, and it might have come off if only Kesey had managed to elude capture for another two weeks. But on October 19 October 20th he was spotted and arrested after a short chase down the San Francisco freeway. For a time it looked like the judge might deny bail; he sat on the motion for five days before setting it at thirty thousand dollars, and then only after Kesey's lawyers had argued that their client had returned to America expressly to warn his young followers against using LSD. That was what the Acid Test Graduation was all about. Ken wants "to warn his young followers against drug use," his lawyers said. "He wants to tell the kids there is no purpose in taking drugs, and that it is dangerous until science finds out more about it."  No mention was made of next year's superhero costumes.


(Storming Heaven: LSD and The American Dream) [.pdf file]



(The Times (San Mateo, California) 21 Oct 1966, Fri Page 29 (among other newspaper articles) report that Kesey was apprehended by FBI on October 20th)

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"Cold Turkey" is a song written by John Lennon, released as a single in 1969 by the Plastic Ono Band on Apple Records, catalogue Apples 1001 in the United Kingdom, Apple 1813 in the United States. It is the second solo single issued by Lennon, and it peaked at #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #14 on the British singles chart. The song's first appearance on album was the 1975 compilation Shaved Fish.

Writing and recording

According to Peter Brown in his book The Love You Make, the song was written in a "creative outburst" following Lennon and Ono going "cold turkey" from their brief heroin addictions.  Brown also states that Lennon presented the song to Paul McCartney as a potential single by The Beatles, but was refused and released it as a Plastic Ono Band single with sole writing credits to him.

"Cold Turkey" was the first song John Lennon wrote for which he took sole credit; his previous compositions, including his first single release, "Give Peace a Chance", were attributed to the Lennon/McCartney partnership, although the credit for "Give Peace a Chance" was later changed to Lennon alone.  It was recorded in Abbey Road Studio 2. There are other versions, a couple acoustic, and one that features Yoko Ono adding her unique vocalisations (as they did the song live), but none of these served as the single.

The single was released with a standard green Apple label, with the words "Play Loud" printed on the spindle plug of the UK pressing and above and beneath the spindle hole of the US pressing. This instruction would also appear on the labels of Lennon's next solo single, "Instant Karma!"

"Cold Turkey" rose to #14 on the British Singles Chart on the chart announced on 11 November 1969. On 18 November, "Cold Turkey" dropped to #15, and on 25 November Lennon returned his MBE to Buckingham Palace saying "I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With love, John Lennon of Bag."  In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Cold Turkey" at number 74 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

Live performance

Its first public performance was recorded and released on the Live Peace In Toronto 1969 album by Plastic Ono Band which included Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, and Alan White. Yoko introduced it as the newest song written by John; John added that the band had never played the song together as a group before. He also performed this song, along with "Don't Worry Kyoko", at the Lyceum Ballroom with George Harrison, Keith Moon, Eric Clapton, and others. This would be Lennon's last live performance with any of the other Beatles, and this version would be available on his Some Time in New York City album.

Personnel

    John Lennon: lead and harmony vocals, rhythm guitar
    Eric Clapton: lead guitar
    Klaus Voormann: bass
    Ringo Starr: drums


B-side "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow)" by Yoko Ono
Released 20 October 1969 (US)
24 October 1969 (UK)
Format 7"
Recorded 28 September 1969
Genre Rock
Length 5:01
Label Apple Records
Writer(s) John Lennon
Producer John Lennon, Yoko Ono


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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The Brink's robbery of 1981 was an armed robbery and three related murders committed on October 20, 1981, which were carried out by six Black Liberation Army members: Jeral Wayne Williams (Mutulu Shakur), Donald Weems (Kuwasi Balagoon), Samuel Brown (Solomon Bouines), Samuel Smith (Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata), Edward Joseph, and Cecilio "Chui" Ferguson; and four former members of the Weather Underground, now belonging to the May 19th Communist Organization, consisting of David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck.

They stole $1.6 million in cash from a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York, killing a Brink's guard, Peter Paige, seriously wounding Brink's guard Joseph Trombino, slightly wounding Brink's truck driver guard, James Kelly, subsequently killing two Nyack police officers, Edward O'Grady and Waverly Brown (the first African American member of the Nyack, New York police department), and seriously wounding Police Detective Artie Keenan.  Trombino recovered from the wounds he received in this incident but was killed in 2001 in the September 11 attacks.


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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