Publisher’s Note: War

The background image that was used in Jim Berg's Publisher's Note is a scan of the Marine Corps emblem tattoo on Jim Berg's left shoulder.

The background image that was used in Jim Berg’s Publisher’s Note is a scan of the Marine Corps emblem tattoo on Jim Berg’s left shoulder.

By Jim Berg

It has been said that the ultimate rite of womanhood is childbirth, and the ultimate rite of manhood is war. While this may or may not be true, it is a belief that I no longer abide by. But this hasn’t always been the case. It was something of an avocation throughout the beginning of my adult life to seek the opportunity to kill another man.

My ideas of manhood were born of late-night war movies. Late on Saturday night in my formative years I watched the Johnny Get Your Gun movie showcase, which featured the best and the worst of Hollywood’s World War II propaganda films, and I loved every one of them. I identified wholeheartedly with every hero, and felt the righteousness of perpetuating the worst violence upon the evil other, the Japanese or the Germans. That was the deep lesson that I learned. I never asked why, or if this was the right thing to do, or if there might be a different way. A man toughs it out and prevails over his enemies — kill or be killed. Even if he was killed, it was righteous if it was a fighting death that enabled his buddies to prevail.

A year after graduating from high school I joined the Marine Corps Reserve. I say that seeking the opportunity to kill another man was an avocation because I never did it on a full-time basis. There were other things I wanted to accomplish, among them getting a college education. Nonetheless, I made a significant commitment to the pursuit of a killing. Marine Corps boot camp is the great foundry of manhood, where they go one up on turning boys into men — they turn men into Marines, the manliest of men, the best perpetuators of violence.

It was in boot camp that rays of reality started to shine on the patent lies and fantasies that I had consumed as a boy on those late Saturday nights. Little things that should be obvious, but aren’t when they’re wrapped in glory and righteousness. I remember a live fire demonstration of the Claymore mine, an “anti-personnel” mine about the size of a book, and that features hundreds of pellets the size of 00 buckshot embedded in C4, a plastic explosive. When one was detonated, I thought, “It would be horrible to be on the receiving end of that.” And there was a “Jody,” a call and response sort of song led by the drill instructor to keep cadence while marching, that had the lines:

Momma, Momma can’t you see
what the Marine Corps’ done to me?
Put a rifle in my hand.
Taught me how to kill a man.

Kill a man? Wait a minute, I signed up to kill Japs, Nazis, commies, gooks, Saddam, or the Ayatollah, not kill a man. It started to dawn on me what this business was really about. It sobered me. But rather than make any moral judgement about what I was learning in boot camp, I simply eliminated the moral question. I was learning to do a job. I was giving myself over to be an implement of the state, to the people of the United States of America, to do a difficult job, and as a matter of pride I was going to be the best that I could be at that job. It removed any pretense of morality from what I was doing. How I was going to be used in this job became a matter of faith — I didn’t question where or who I might fight, but I would do my duty and do the worst violence to whomever I was set upon.

That I came to the above conclusion is kind of scary. It is frightening to think that I could have been in a boot camp of the Waffen SS in 1940, and could have come to the same conclusion, with the most evil of consequences. But it could have happened. I am capable of evil.

If I, a typical human being, am capable of the worst evil, how can it be prevented? The first step is in recognizing the evil that exists in oneself. Personal evil is probably the one thing that everyone can do something about. The trick is recognizing it. It’s a good bet that anything that has taints of violence is evil. War, for example. If you believe in a good war, evil lurks nearby. Or how about, “All casual drug users should be taken out and shot,” or “Some women want to be raped,” or “Taggers should be caned,” or “If a fag touches me, I’ll beat the shit out him,” or “Reasonable force”?

Examine your own beliefs and attitudes, and then read the words that appear on the cover of this magazine. There may not be much you can do to stop the war in Bosnia, or gang violence in the street, but you can do something about your own violent tendencies. And you’ve got them if you’re an American.

Stop the violence, increase the peace, brothers and sisters.

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The following quotation appeared on the cover of NoHo Magazine:

War, with all its glorification of brute force, is essentially a degrading thing. It demoralizes those who are trained for it. It brutalizes men of naturally gentle character. It outrages every beautiful canon of morality. Its path of glory is fouled with the passions of lust, and red with the blood of murder. This is not the pathway to our goal. The grandest aid to development of strong, pure, beautiful character, which is our aim, is the endurance of suffering. Self restraint, unselfishness, patience, gentleness, these are the flowers which spring beneath the feet of those who accept but refuse to impose suffering.

— Gandhi

Behind the Scenes at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

By Stephen R. Wolcott

It looks like a big, salmon monolith. It’s got a huge, gilded, hood-ornament-of-a fountain surrounded by life-size statues from television’s Golden Age. Aside from a few paparazzi-filled affairs, the place seems pretty lifeless, an image not helped by some empty storefront windows. What goes on at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, anyway? Is its sole purpose to simply dole out dubious awards to itself once a year? Continue reading

Another Day in the Big City

Jim Berg, Publisher of NoHo Magazine 1993-1994

By Jim Berg

A young mother struggles to board a bus, carrying a small child and a bag of groceries. She has to put down the child and the groceries to reach into her pocket for her bus pass, then find a seat on the crowded bus. A young man stands and offers his seat near the front of the bus, for which she is grateful. After finally getting seated with child and groceries, she notices that the elderly gentleman who boarded the bus after her is twenty-five cents short of the required fare. She quickly reaches into her bag and produces a quarter, which she offers to the old man. Even though he speaks little English, his gratitude transcends language, and the bus driver is relieved of the conflict between sympathy and fare policy. Continue reading

Letters

I cannot begin to tell you how appalled I was to read Midge Grebbens’ comments in the “Society Page” of NoHo Magazine (May, 1994).

It is beyond my comprehension how anyone could ascribe racial overtones to such a positive community effort. Where did her twisted assessment “White folks fear fest” come from? How damaging, and how untrue. Continue reading

Twenty Years at the Group Rep

Lonny Chapman (front, center) and Janet Wood (to his left) with Reaching Up cast

Lonny Chapman (front, center) and Janet Wood (to his left) with Reaching Up cast

By Jeff Nelson

The Group Repertory Theatre is currently engaged in its twentieth year of operation, which makes it one of the oldest and most successful theatres in the Valley. I dropped in recently to ask Lonny Chapman, the Artistic Director, and Janet Wood, a founding member, about their theatre and the developing scene in the NoHo Arts District. We met in the lobby of the theatre on a weekday morning, when the building was deserted except for a few volunteers who were working on the latest publicity mailing. Continue reading

An Ellyn Maybe Poem

Sometimes I wish it were about 10 years ago
I was miserable
I threw portable fans. Trying to cool off the temperature
I kicked, punched and screamed.
I beat my head into walls.
I cried when everything else was too exhausting
and then that too consumed my lungs and cardiovascular potential
10 years ago I was still on the cusp of meeting my niche
and the cusp is sometimes just as bad as being
10 billion miles away
So while others had beauty
and some had grace
and some had significant history
and some had dance partners
I got my attention by being a she-could-lose-it-at-any-moment
caricature of a tormented suicidal girl out of time Continue reading

Ellyn Maybe: from cusp to niche

Ellyn Maybe -- Photo by Cindy Beal

Ellyn Maybe — Photo by Cindy Beal

By Teresa Willis

Ellyn Maybe is a poet’s poet. The mention of her name among those familiar with her work often prompts a wordless response comprised of a drop-jawed expression of awe and wonder. But she also has an appeal that reaches those not impressed with poetry and poets. “I don’t like poetry but I like your work,” is a comment she hears frequently. Continue reading

Yowzah, Club Dump, and the Blue Saloon

Yowzah -- photo by Cindy Beal

Yowzah — photo by Cindy Beal

By Jim Berg

A half hour before show time, Yowzah is nervously staring off into middle space, running through a mental checklist, twice. He turns to me and smiles, “It’s always like this before a show. I gotta make sure everything is right.”

Yowzah is an outside promoter for the Blue Saloon, a North Hollywood neighborhood watering hole that normally caters to the Hollywood working class people with job titles like Grip or Boom Operator — the techies who do the real work in the Industry. Before Yowzah arrives at the Blue Saloon, the music coming over the juke box is usually something like Rush, or Bad Company, or Led Zeppelin, or Jimi Hendrix. After Yowzah arrives, the music coming over the juke box is Pearl Jam, or Nirvana, or Smashing Pumpkins, or Velvet Underground. Continue reading

Look Out, They’ve Got a Gun! The American Renegade Massacres a Musical

look_out

By Jeff Nelson

Knockin’ ‘Em Dead, a musical version of the life of gangster Al Capon, is the latest in a string of mediocre productions to come from the American Renegade Theatre. Director David Cox and his partners in crime have gone in way over their heads this time, however, and produced something truly awful. If the American Renegade is trying to establish itself as the worst theatre in the NoHo Arts District, this show will most certainly help them secure that reputation. Discriminating theatregoers vill stay as far away from this disaster as possible. Continue reading

Speaking in Tongues: an interview with Matthew Niblock

matthew_niblock

By Teresa Willis

Though he and his wife, Gale Ford, are settled nicely in Venice, Matthew Niblock got his start at the Poets’ Circle at the Iguana Cafe in North Hollywood. Since popping in on a Sunday afternoon in 1991 with a few “clunky metaphors,” Niblock has grown to be one of the area’s most prominent and prolific artists. He is a veteran of the bands Larger Than Life and October, and a founding board member of the Dance of the Iguana Press. Copies of his independently produced spoken word/music cassette The House I Live In are almost sold out (though you can still find a couple at the Iguana). Continue reading