My favorite filmmaker, Rainer Werner Fassbinder (whose best movie was “In a Year of 13 Moons”), said when the subject of contemporary German terrorists the Bader-Meinhof Group came up, “I don’t throw bombs. I make movies.” Well, I make songs. And this latest one may just be incendiary.
KELLY THOMAS, since July of 2011, is a trauma, an unhealed wound, to all of Orange County, or anyone who paid attention anyway:
- First, that three Fullerton cops could do that to a frail homeless schizophrenic, and that three other cops would do nothing but hold the spectators back.
- Then, the lies that were told about the murder by the PD and the press (amplified, don’t forget, by Matt Cunningham at the time) – “Kelly Thomas had superhuman strength!” “He was hurting the cops!” … Until the photos and video were finally released and undeniable.
- And then the complete lack of justice and consequences, except for the fact that Manny Ramos and Daniel Wolfe (who suffocated Kelly with their fat bodies) and Jay Cicinelli (who bashed the hell out of Kelly’s face with his taser butt) don’t get to be cops any more. In fact we saw One-Eyed Cicinelli a few years later delivering mail in Huntington Beach. It should be the three cops who DID NOTHING who don’t get to be cops any more, and the three killers should be doing jail time.
This blog, and to a greater degree, our then-partners at Friends For Fullerton’s Future (which was then run mainly by Tony Bushala and probably Zenger) were at the forefront of covering this whole travesty. The murder would never have gotten the attention it did without the dedicated work and resources of Bushala, and our Ryan Cantor wrote a great piece after the sham of an exoneration, simply entitled “Not Guilty?”
Fullerton activists haven’t even been able to get a Police Review Board – not even a weak half-assed one like the one in Anaheim.
Well, at least we have songs, for what that’s worth. My friend Roy “El Roy” made this fine angry folk song at the time:
My new song, “The Ghost of Kelly Thomas,” is a little more complicated. It’s the tenth and last piece of my “Songs of the OC Homeless,” and has taken me forever to write, for which I have no good excuse, except that it’s unpleasant to live through this shit again.
It mostly uses reggae rhythms, because Stephan Baxter told me that Kelly used to hang out on his porch listening to reggae, and Kelly’s little sister Tina tells me his favorite song was this:
This new song is kind of in four sections, but I hope it hangs together sensibly:
- Portrait of Kelly (to a playful easy-going reggae beat)
- Piano dirge, accompanying about a minute of the sound of Kelly’s murder
- Anthem “The Ghost of Kelly Thomas” in the tradition of “John Brown’s Body” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad”
- Coda – piano dirge alone.
OH! In case you’re not familiar with “John Brown’s Body” or Tom Joad…
John Brown
John Brown was a (slavery) abolitionist, terrorist and martyr. He, his sons, and a handful of followers were so passionately against slavery that they got sick of their fellow abolitionists’ pacifism and, in the 1850’s, years before the Civil War, led several terrorist attacks against slaveowners and their sympathizers. For this he was hanged in 1859, and came to be considered a martyr and visionary.
We all grew up with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” an anti-slavery Civil War anthem of the North. Well, before Elizabeth Ward Howe wrote her stirring lyrics “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…” the song was much simpler – “John Brown’s body lies mould’ring in the grave, but his truth goes marching on.”
You can hear Uncle Pete sing a little of it here, but just a dab’ll do you. I stole the word “mould’ring” for my song.
Tom Joad
Tom Joad is the protagonist of Steinbeck’s novel “Grapes of Wrath,” who over the course of a rough life becomes a committed fighter for justice. He was played by Henry Fonda in the great 1940 film by John Ford. At the end of the movie, forced to go on the run due to an accidental killing, he assures his tearful mother that when ever she looks into the eyes of oppressed people, he’ll be there. You can’t have forgotten this:
Springsteen found that inspiring enough to write a song based on it named “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” I’ll put it here, but it’s kind of a snoozer the way The Boss does it. You’d much rather hear Rage Against the Machine cover it.
Like I said. Here’s Zack, Tom and the gang…
NOW we’re talking. Okay that’s enough background. Here’s the lyrics to the newest song of this trilogy. Since I wrote it, you KNOW the melodies and the piano will be good. (See if you can find Todd Spitzer and Hector Hernandez here.)
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas
pt one
I know I’m different; you musta seen me wand’ring about.
I see my face in every car window saying “Kelly can you let me out,
Kelly can you let me out?”
Listening to reggae on Baxter’s porch… I think I’m gonna walk downtown.
Head on down to Fullerton Station and see what I can find on the ground,
see what I can find on the ground…
(Seems I’m always walking.)
One time they found me in the desert at night.
Walking home from Arizona was not my greatest idea.
My mouth was dry, my feet were bleeding, but I was singing to the stars.
You should have seen those stars…
(Every little thing’s gonna be all right X 2)
But now I’m back in Fullerton.
(The town I live in.)
I found some mail, I found some cigarette butts.
But why are these cops so mean?
They don’t even know my name, I oughtta just walk away,
This is me walking away…
pt 3
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas is rising in this town
Freed from mental illness and the chains that kept him down
Where cops sing songs of innocence and the jury buys their song
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas marches on!
The Thin Blue Line and POBOR and secrecy hold sway,
And paid-off politicians vote to keep it all that way.
When the scared D. A. electorate picks a man who sees no wrong
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas marches on!
Where each new fallen body spawns another web of lies
That the press corps’ dull stenographers make haste to amplify
Where the lawman sics his dog on you, then kills you on your lawn
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas marches on!
The homeless and the challenged and the struggling fill the jails
While in City Halls and corporate walls, impunity prevails
Where piles of wealth accumulate and not where they belong
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas marches on!
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas is raging through this town
Even while his body still lies mould’ring in the ground
Where throngs of fearless activists fight for a brighter dawn
The Ghost of Kelly Thomas marches on!
So I’ll be premiering that at my concert Saturday Dec. 2, 5pm, at the Anaheim United Methodist Church, 1000 S. State College. The song SHOULD have several good singers and a band, but for now it’ll just be me with my scraggly voice and big piano. Here’s the program:
- Chopin: Black Key Etude
- Elton John: Crocodile Rock (singalong)
- Coltrane: Central Park West
- Rodgers & Hammerstein: My Favorite Things (singalong)
- Debussy: SUITE BERGAMASQUE (with Clair de Lune)
- Beethoven: MOONLIGHT SONATA
- Nelson: The Ghost of Kelly Thomas
- (intermission)
- Satie: PIECES FROIDES
- Hallelujah (Cohen combined w/ Handel)
- Chestnuts Roasting combined w/ Cohen’s Everybody Knows
- Tchaikovsky: NUTCRACKER SUITE
- Nelson: Dirty Snow
- Encore – Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire (singalong)
umm,,, see you there I hope?
I can’t say I did much but I did go to a few of the protests and I excessively “horned.”
I understand your going after Spitzer, but let’s remember that it was Rackauckas who took on prosecuting the case against the officers, limited it’s scope beyond reasonableness, and either intentionally or incompetently booted it, letting them escape justice.
I sometimes forget to knclude this when enumerating the reasons that I supported Spitzer over Rackauckas in 2018, but it was a big determinant of my contempt for Racky.
The last half of the song branches off beyond the case of Kelly, to general justice in OC and beyond.
I always thought that Tony Racetrack went after the wrong charges and that he deliberately ignored the issue of the call from Slidebar that may have started the incident and that might have constituted a conspiracy that really would have justified the charges against Ramos and Wolfe.
That’s what I was getting at, but you have better recall of the details.
Video of me doing the song…. on June 22 you’ll hear it with better singers and more instruments!