Up Against The Wall Motherf Er

They called themselves the Motherfuckers; others called them a "street gang with an analysis." Osha Neumann's thoughtful, funny, and honest account of his part in ’60s counterculture is also an unflinching look at what all that rebellion of the past means today. The fast moving story follows the establishment of the Motherfuckers, who influenced the Yippies and members of SDS; makes vivid the art, music, and politics of the era; and reveals the colorful, often deeply strange, personalities that gave the movement its momentum. Abbie Hoffman said the Motherfuckers were "the middle-class nightmare . . . an antimedia media phenomenon simply because their name could not be printed." In the few years of its existence the group forced its way into the Pentagon during a war protest, helped occupy one of the buildings in the Columbia University takeover, and cut the fences at Woodstock to allow thousands in for free, among many other feats of radical derring-do. Progressing from a fractured family of intellectuals to rebellion in the streets of New York and on to communes in California, Newmann shows us a view of a life led in rebellion, anger, and eventually a tentative peace.

They called themselves the Motherfuckers; others called them a ''street gang with an analysis.'' Osha Neumann's thoughtful, funny, and honest account of his part in '60s counterculture is also an unflinching look at what all that rebellion of the past means today. The fast moving story follows the establishment of the Motherfuckers, who influenced the Yippies and members of SDS; makes vivid the art, music, and politics of the era; and reveals the colorful, often deeply strange, personalities that gave the movement its momentum. Abbie Hoffman said the Motherfuckers were ''the middle-class nightmare . . . an antimedia media phenomenon simply because their name could not be printed.'' In the few years of its existence the group forced its way into the Pentagon during a war protest, helped occupy one of the buildings in the Columbia University takeover, and cut the fences at Woodstock to allow thousands in for free, among many other feats of radical derring-do.

Scratchings on the Wall is a curious thing, an oddity at once strange yet familiar. Mixing personal commentary, some pithy vignettes, and three decades worth of song lyrics, Dave Winans stakes out his own claim as an honorary modern-day member of what music critic Greil Marcus refers to as the "Invisible Republic." From the opening tribute to his sister to the fond farewell to bluegrass legend John Hartford, Winans touches upon the personal and political in his search for "common sense, a kinder faith, and a little clear-eyed understanding of the craziness around us." In between are ballads, rags, dirges, talking blues and love songs about, among other things, dogs, family, God, street musicians, women and baseball.

How this vulgar slang became a cultural archetype and the subject of Supreme Court rulings....

THE STORY: Struggles with addiction, friendship, love and the challenges of adulthood are at the center of the story. Jackie, a petty drug dealer, is just out of prison and trying to stay clean. He's also still in love with his coke-addicted childh

A funny, frightening compendium of absurd and outrageous government infringements on ordinary Americans' lifes, liberties, and property rights. Shakedown gathers the evidence into an appalling list--organized alphabetically by subject, from Affirmative Action to Zoning Laws--of the ways petty bureaucrats and zealous officials run roughshod over individual rights.