Beautiful and Articulate Rage

"Shirley Chisholm made an extremely perceptive remark a while back to the effect that there is a very strange mood in our country that nobody has quite been able to put his finger on – a certain lack of focus, I think she meant, a lack of fixed direction, yet an almost smoldering determination to set-things-straight-or-else. I’ve sensed it too, in the most bizarre places, even in the songs that I hear on the radio and in the way young men dress in gay bars. David Allen’s book is a component of that mood, and although he certainly doesn’t provide the whole picture by any means (No one does, or could if he wanted to), his gut level reaction to, for instance, the Los Angeles Police Department will get you pointed in the right direction.

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David L. Allen The Light from the Second Story Window Exposition Press. 1972

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His hardbound book can be read in one sitting, and I wouldn’t call it anything more than a tract novel, with heavy emphasis on the tract, for as a novel it is a failure. (He framed it wrong, and one gets SO tired of the stereotyped hustler-hero, and resentful as well – we aren’t all hustlers, dammit!) But once Allen forgets his "plot" and gets into the system and people’s heads, he is beautiful. It is a scream of absolutely animal rage at all the forces in our society that conspire to limit our humanity; more specifically, at our legal and law enforcement agencies, and even more specifically at the Lord Almighty Police Department, usually known as the LAPD. There are some very moving, beautiful, and enraging passages here, I assure you.

Presumably, Allen is in a good position to know what he is talking about, having worked in various capacities for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Sheriff’s Department and Juvenile court, and one shouldn’t doubt his anecdotes for two seconds. I didn’t, having lived in the Diabolical City for as long as I could take it, which was exactly a year.

Entrapment? You betcha.

Trumped-up charges? Ask anybody.

Brutality? Whew!

What Allen seems to miss by about six months or a year, I’d guess, is the new determination to do something besides throw rocks, demonstrate, and trash around a bit, which ain't where it’s at any more, or at least not until November. He talks an awful lot about TIT-FOR-TAT and machine guns and the like, but that isn’t what Shirley Chisholm was saying. Even the Black Panthers are going out and registering voters, and I suggest that Allen get off his duff and do the same or something similar, if he hasn’t already. Project HELP in LA would be a good beginning.

Then after November, friend, we’ll see.

Brother, can you spare a match?

- R. Amory