Whatever happened to the heroes?
Posted on Friday 12 December, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized
‘No more heroes anymore’ was one of the central punk slogans of 1977; I think I can even remember stencilling it on a T-shirt. Yet all of us inevitably have them, and over the Christmas and New Year period, I’m going to be running over my top ten. I will also offer a brief motivation of why each deserves their placing. By way of a warm up, I’m starting with a list of 50 or so individuals that came into consideration, but didn’t quite make the final cut.
The object of the exercise has not been carefully and objectively to pick out the greatest people who have ever lived; the choices were made in half an hour flat, after a couple of drinks. I see it more as a way of acknowledging those that have inspired me by the political stands they took, the books they wrote, the music they made, the football they played, the pictures they painted, or simply on account of their sheer bravery.
Interestingly, only a handful of those named can rightly be described as saintly individuals; a striking proportion are known to have been dependent on alcohol or drugs, inordinately fond of getting their leg over, and thoroughly abusive in their personal relationships.
Many achieved bad things as well as good, and some are at least as notable for the sheer volume of artistic dross for which they are responsible as for their works of undoubted genius. One was even a dictator, and some of them may not have proved exemplary democrats had they ever been able to achieve power.
Note to passing libel lawyers: nothing in the two previous paragraphs applies to any living person in the Dave Osler Heroes Ranking 2008, all of whom are obviously paragons of both sobriety and familial devotion.
The first draft of the top ten was actually a top eleven. I am extremely aggrieved to have to leave out that great blues harp revolutionary Marion Walter Jacobs, better known as Little Walter. But all of the top ten somehow did seem to have greater claim.
Born in rural Louisiana in 1930, Little Walter was playing the street corners of New Orleans for spare change before he reached his teens. He went to Chicago in 1946, and ended up doing for the humble harmonica what Coltrane did for tenor sax or Hendrix did for the electric guitar, extending the range of the instrument as far as it could possibly go.
He can truly claim to be the greatest ever exponent of what he did, making the harp an integral component of the new urban blues sound of the 1950s. I never tire of listening to his classic recordings.
Sadly, the man was a complete nogoodnik, drinking to excess and picking fights in nightclubs with equal abandon. After one such bar-room brawl, he died of coronary thrombosis in 1968, aged just 37. A true bluesman’s death, if ever there was one.
OK, here – in alphabetical order – are the rest of the close calls: Johann Sebastian Bach, Iain Banks, Jeff Beck, Marc Bolan, Tony Benn, Eric Clapton, Tony Cliff, Ornette Coleman, James Connolly, Robert Cray, Miles Davis, Friedrich Engels, Al Franken, Günter Grass, Jimi Hendrix, Christopher Hitchens, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Wassily Kandinsky, Albert King, Abram Leon, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Richard Littlejohn, John Pilger, PJ O’Rourke, Tom Paine, Greg Palast, Joe Pass, Pablo Picasso, Iggy Pop, Nicos Poulantzas, Maximilien Robespierre, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Scargill, Erik Satie, Spartacus, Joe Strummer, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Gunter Wallraff.
Terribly enough, yes, they are all blokes. That must say something. Comments welcome. Either have a go at some of my choices, guess who’s going to make the top ten, or nominate some of the names you think I missed.
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60 Responses to “Whatever happened to the heroes?”
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Please tell me you’re taking the piss – Cliff, Hitchens, Littlejohn, O’Rourke!! It’s not like you to be pointlessly self-indulgent.
Günter Grass???
Alexandra Kollontai and Angela Davis.
Satie?
An irrelevant non-entity if there ever was one.
T Rex gets my vote
Doug
Well, Cliff was an important populariser of Marxism. I have recently been rereading that Ted Grant book from 1989, and it has to be said that Cliff’s writings have stood the test time better than TG’s.
As for the other three, well, I admire any writer who can make politics interesting and win a mass audience. That’s the whole skill of political journalism. I can admire the technique while hating the politics.
Entdinglichung
Yes, loved The Tin Drum.
Rory
No there’s something so soothing about Satie. De-stress on a CD.
What Doug said
It’s difficult without seeing the top 10, but if Johanes Gutenberg doesn’t make it in there somewhere I’ll want to know why.
Bloody soothing.
I’d bar anyone from a Best Of list if the best you can say for their music is it’s ‘soothing’.
I will convince you of this if you are at the Hackney LRC Christmas drink this evening. Hmm, that may not be the best advert.
it is true that Grass wrote two good books “Tin Drum” and “Der Butt” … but he joined voluntarily, 17 years old in 1944 the Waffen SS and only admitted it in 2006; and his novel “Im Krebsgang” (2002) shows a very conciliatory attitude towards the Nazis
Just sticking to the people Iv’e seen, or met:-
I agree about Walter Jacobs, of course.
Miles Davis. A strangely elusive personality. I saw him once with Van Morrison in Central Park NY and all I remember was Van!
Marc Bolan – Nah! I used to see him sitting on the steps of the Marquee in his jumper, with his accoustic guitar and warbly voice.
Just can’t equate him with the “Electric Warrior”.
Jimi Hendrix – no probs there.
Eric Clapton – Yeah, when detoxed and not talking about politics, especially 90′s band with Nathan East.
Joe Strummer -strangely uncharismatic as a performer, blended with the collective.
Tony Cliff:- Capricious
Arthur Scargill – Spiky
You missed off John Rees, I presume he is in your top ten ?
In defence of Grass, well it is no surprise that a 17 year old subject to the indoctrination of a Nazi upbringing signed up to the Waffen SS. It probably seemed a natural step.
True, I haven’t read the last one.
“Please tell me you’re taking the piss – Cliff, Hitchens, Littlejohn, O’Rourke!! It’s not like you to be pointlessly self-indulgent.”
I can see why one might rate Cliff, Hitchens and O’Rourke. After all, one can admire someone’s insight, style etc, whether or not you agree with them. But Littleprick, what’s there to admire?
Littlejohn is ‘intellectually’ lazy, and despite his pretence of representing the ‘common man’, he in fact despises him. That’s why he can’t be arsed to write anything both challenging and reactionary.
Or is that your point, Dave?
Rosa Luxemburg?
Emma Goldman?
Eva Braun?
Golda Meir?
Ulrike Meinhof?
Paul Foot’s obviously in your top ten, but Julius Martov and Kathy Burke should be in there also. (Sorry, that would be my top ten.)
IF Stone? Noddy Holder? Victor Serge? That bloke from the 1974 Texan bar commerical?
James Baldwin
Top Trumps: As a favour, I’ll swap your Eric Clapton for another blues popularist, Willie Dixon. Dixon’s “Walking the Blues” — when it accompanied a TV advert in the late 1980s — probably turned more people onto the genre than sterile Clapton.
Primo Levi.
Michalis Raptis.
Bernadette Devlin (as was).
YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! Lumping Bach, Hendrix and Albert King together with tossers like Hitchens and Joe Strummer? I don’t like you anymore! Some of the others are ok – Jeff Beck and SRV – but the greatest? Give us a break. You need a period of re-education through labour. Where’s Stalin? Or Mao? At least you spared us Trotsky.
Oh sorry, that’s your list of also-rans. BUT – Bach, Albert King and Hendrix also-rans? Actually, when I think about it, you’re right, apart from Albert King. I had to decide between Mao and Bach, and in the balance – here’s my top 10 (I see Islam as a Christian sect, so reluctantly felt Mohammed’s contribution was covered by Christ):
Lao Tse, Plato, Euclid, Christ, Bach, Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Karl Marx, Stalin, Albert King.
Jimmie Johnson – winner of the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship 3 years in a row – one of the most difficult three-peats in sports. Precise, daring, take-no-prisoners driver on the track and all-around good guy off-the-track.
Mohammed Ali,Nye Bevan,Paul Robeson,Paul Foot, Jack London and Keith Emerson.
Olympe de Gouges
Simone Weil
Nina Hagan
Plus, how could you forget Michel Rapitis?
Pilger was once a great journalist. These days he’s a shameful apologist for mass murder and tyranny (as well as one of the last people to use the term “Uncle Tom” without apparent embarrassment.
As for great women: how about Rosa Luxemburg, Bessie Smith and Dorothy Parker?
Wreckless Eric, a giant of pop.
Gene Kelly, Nadia Comenechi, Mohammed Ali, Alexandra Kollantai, all the women of Red Clydeside, Signourey Truth, Sylvie Pankhurt, Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Budica and my grandad!
………. and I can’t believe it I forgot Zorro and Champion the Wonder Horse!
Andrew, I have never quite got why you refer to ‘Michel Rapitis’.
I have seen many variants on the ‘Michael’ bit (ie linguistic variants of the name). I have never seen variants of ‘Pablo’, or ‘Raptis’.
As something of a fellow fan of the man, I wonder why that particular spelling.
Angela Davis, Jill Scott, Cornel West, Charlie Brooker, Adam Curtis, Naomi Klein, Stewart Lee, Raymond “Boots” Riley, Rafael Correa, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Tony Benn are just some of mine.
Eddie,
heard Eric’s latest album? Excellent.
Vdeputy,
Surely you meant Jimmy Johnstone? One of the greatest footballers of all time.
So no women at all? Did any make the top ten??
Why do you think some of the women others have already mentioned didn’t get a look in – because you don’t rate them as much as the blokes (I would be inclined to rate them more as they would have had to fight harder to be heard over the men) or because society don’t give them as much credit, we don’t hear about them as much and therefore they don’t pop into your head when your spending half hour doing the top 10?
Well, probably all of these reasons to be honest, MJ. One woman does make it into the top ten.
Hi, I’m a newbie here but have been following this blog for a wee while now, and this struck a chord with me, so here goes:
In no particular order, my heroes/heroines would include John Maclean, James Maxton, Harry McShane, George Orwell, Jock Stein, Billy McNeill, Henrik Larsson, H L Mencken, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Dick Gaughan, Philip Larkin (really! – despite his politics, for his profound and true insight into the human condition), Primo Levi, Willy Brandt, Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Earle, Aneurin Bevan, Iain Macwhirter, Richard Thompson, Tommy Sheridan (early to middle period), Mick McGahey, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the McCluskey Brothers and Bill Hicks.
isn’t the whole notion of “heroes” so much a relic of a by-gone age?
and not that far removed from the contemporary cult of celebrity?
that strange need in society to look up to someone, someone else?
but instead of Britney Spears or other vacant entertainers, we have various political demi-Gods?
surely, the history of the 20th century showed the errors of personality cults, why the glorification of leaders was wrong and how putting trust in “heroes” is often misplaced?
so knowing all of that, why should we want to replicate that admiration of “heroes” again?
Lobbby, wrong on the Michael, but think I’m right on the Rapitis. Will check.
My hero would have to be Ken MacLeod, for writing so many wonderful books
Being picky,I meant ‘Michael’ in a general family-type way, a family which includes ‘Michel’, ‘Michalis’ etc.
Jim Denham wrote “Pilger was once a great journalist. These days he’s a shameful apologist for mass murder and tyranny…”
o rly? Smells like bullshit to me. Furthermore if you’re more concerned about his inclusion in the list than Richard fucking Littlejohn then you rly have lost the plot. Sad.
My heroes in chronological order were;
Robot Archie from The Lion comic
Julius Caesar
Action Man
Napoleon
Keith Richards
David Bowie
Jimmy Reid
Joe Strummer
Leon Trotsky
early to middle period Tommy Sheridan
After that there were no more heroes.
Nigel: I take your point about Littlejohn et al, in Dave’s bizarre list. I guess I’m just upset about Pilger because he once was so good – not something that can be said about Littlejohn. I don’t have any idea what the fuck Dave was thinking of including him in the list of “heroes”, unless he (Dave) thinks he (Littlejohn) is a stylish writer…and even then, I’d beg to differ.
None of which detracts from my main point: that Pilger, these days is an apologist for tyranny and a slightly loony anti-American and anti-Israeli shadow of his former self.
Jim, go and get in the spirit of the thread dude and lets hear it more for the heroes, if there are any.
Eddie
Napoleon? Really? Motivate …
only 2 painters, i see. i’ll throw in mark rothko, adolph gottleib, and joseph cornell. as for poets, charles olson, robert duncan, jack spicer, and phil whalen. and, from antiquity, spartacus is a fine choice, but i think diogenes the cynic needs to be on everyone’s list.
“Napoleon? Really? Motivate …”
He may have been a ruthless warmonger who betrayed the ideals of the French Revolution but at least he never wrote an article excusing the murder of prostitutes Dave. Your nomination of Littlejohn has rendered any criticism you make of other people’s heros null and void, even if they nominate Henry Kissenger or Idi Armin or some crazy shit like that.
One glaring missing example. Not a warbler or a scribbler but a famous Left who was also effective.
Lee Harvey Oswald.
See my new article for reasons why he should be chosen – http://southpawpunch.blogspot.com/2008/12/unrecognised-hero-library-snooping.html
heroes, guns, killing, how very 21st century!
what next favourite bits from the X Factor? how juvenile
I presume that last comment was meant at me Modernity, but it’s strange if it is. How many did, for example, Robespierre (in Dave’s list) have killed?
Why don’t you read what I wrote first (I see from the logs that you didn’t) about the curious and undeserved absence of Oswald from the general ‘folk memory’ of the Left, before you next randomly tap your keyboard.
SPP,
I freely concede I don’t or did not read your blog, but I think this whole hero worship crap is a real product of class based attitudes, and a negative one at that
the looking up to people and the enforcement of hierarchy thru cultural and societal norms is a backward way of looking at things, IMO
as for Oswald, if you were to judge his merits objectively you’d have to consider the consequences of the assassination of JFK, which initially was LBJ taking over and ramping up the war in Vietnam, all very negative
then ponder whether or not Oswald really was a leftie or a plant?
still as long as someone gets killed you’re probably happy?