To celebrate Bob Dylan’s birthday, a very special event, “The Dylan-Kerouac Connection,” will be held in Berkeley, CA on Friday, May 18, 2018.
Former Rolling Stone Senior Writer/ West Coast Music Editor Michael Goldberg and acclaimed Bay Area singer/guitarist Johnny Harper will be collaborating on a night of words about and music by Bob Dylan.
Goldberg will read from his new essay, “Bob Dylan’s Beat Visions (Sonic Poetry),” which has just been published in the book “Kerouac On Record” (Bloomsbury). Harper will perform exciting solo versions of “Desolation Row,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” Mr. Tambourine Man,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and more!
The two set evening will begin at 7:30 pm at The Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
Goldberg’s essay focuses on how Jack Kerouac and other Beat writers had a profound influence on the songwriting of Bob Dylan. In reviewing “Kerouac On Record,” Mojo magazine wrote: “Among the strongest in a strong lot are Michael Goldberg’s examination of Dylan’s lit roots and Kerouac’s own musicological piece — ‘The Beginning Of Bop’ – that attempts to capture jazz in words – and succeeds.”
Johnny Harper is a well-known Bay Area singer, lead guitarist, songwriter, bandleader, arranger, and producer of recordings and concerts.
Harper has been known, for many years, for leading rockin’ bands (Johnny Harper & Carnival and the earlier Hot Links) specializing in the joyous, upbeat, and funky New Orleans R&B sound – the music of artists like Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, the Meters/ Neville Brothers, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, and many more. He lived in New Orleans for several years at one point, soaking up the Crescent City’s magic first-hand.
In addition to his work in bands, Johnny is a powerful solo performer, accompanying himself in complex lead/rhythm and finger-picking styles on electric and acoustic guitars. He is a veteran performer in a wider range of American roots music styles – blues and gospel, vintage rock and classic country, R&B/ soul, traditional and contemporary folk, and more. He is an expert on the music of The Band, and knows over 100 Bob Dylan songs! And he is a born storyteller whose comments on the music are by turns moving and highly entertaining.
The show will take place at: The Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA. Suggested donation: $15.00 – $25.00
For additional info, please contact Johnny Harper: jjmusic@ix.netcom.com
We’ve known for years that Bob Dylan borrowed melodies from older songs, and that particular songs and poems inspired him to write his own lyrics. In a nearly 12,000 word essay in the just published book, “Kerouac On Record: A Literary Soundtrack,” I detail just how extensively Dylan made use of Jack Kerouac’s writing in some of the songs Dylan wrote for Highway 61 Revisited. You can read an excerpt from my essay at Rock’s Back Pages.
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find there:
‘No rhyme, all cut-up, no nothing, except something happening, which is words’
I couldn’t have written those songs back then. If I had just come out and sung “Desolation Row’ five years ago I probably would have been murdered – Bob Dylan to Nat Hentoff, autumn 1965, unpublished interview for Playboy
Following the 3 May 1965 publication of Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels, the publisher, Coward- McCann, a subsidiary of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, ran full-page ads in the Sunday Times Book Review, the daily New York Times, the New York Review of Books and elsewhere. If you were in New York, and dug Jack Kerouac, it would have been hard not to know that the “King of the Beats’ had a new novel in the stores.
Hi Lo Ha (the house Bob Dylan had just bought in Woodstock, New York, was where Dylan said he wrote the rest of Highway 61 Revisited in the six weeks between the 15 and 16 June sessions in Manhattan where “Like a Rolling Stone” (which he’d written in early June) was recorded, and the late July and early August sessions at which the rest of the Highway 61 Revisited album was completed. (Dylan, ever the poet, said that in one interview, but in another with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone he said he wrote the Highway 61 song “Desolation Row” “in the back of a taxicab” in New York.)
More interesting than where the songs that comprise Highway 61 Revisited were written is that just six weeks after Desolation Angels was published, Dylan used the book as a major source of raw material for his new songs. “Desolation Row” took the first half of its title from Kerouac”s new book, and Dylan seems to have gotten the idea for the song’s main theme from Kerouac as well. In Desolation Angels, Kerouac writes about “Surrealistic Street,” and describes a wild cast of characters that he sees out on skid row. What is “Desolation Row,” as Dylan describes it in his song, if not a dark, at times horrific version of Kerouac”s “Surrealistic Street”?…
In a 12,000 word essay, “Bob Dylan’s Beat Visions (Sonic Poetry),” that appears in the upcoming book, “Kerouac On Record: A Literary Soundtrack,” I explore how Bob Dylan was profoundly influenced by the Beat writers, and especially Jack Kerouac.
The book is being published by Bloomsbury and will reach book stores online and off on March 8, 2018. Rock’s Back Pages will be publishing an excerpt from my essay, and the April issue of Mojo magazine (see full review below) includes a rave review that says in part: “Among the strongest in a strong lot are Michael Goldberg’s examination of Dylan’s lit roots and Kerouac’s own musicological piece — ‘The Beginning Of Bop’ – that attempts to capture jazz in words – and succeeds.”
Nice to be mentioned in the same sentence as Kerouac!
In addition my Dylan piece, I also have an interview with writer (and one time rock critic) Richard Meltzer in which he talks at length about Kerouac.
The book also contains essays on the influence of Kerouac on a number of musicians including Tom Waits, the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison, Van Morrison, Patti Smith and others. And there are excellent pieces about the influence of jazz on Kerouac’s writing style.
As we get closer to the publication date I’ll share more about this fascinating book.
Cover art, “Untitled,” by Leslie Goldberg.Love, Truth, Innocence & Loyalty.
Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll & Betrayal.
It’s 1973 and the Sixties are gone, baby, gone. College sophomore Michael Stein has lost his way, betraying everyone once dear to him. Just when he thinks nothing could get worse, femme fatale Harper moves in, and his real troubles begin.
“Untitled” is now available in print and Kindle versions here.
Michael Goldberg – that’s me – will be doing a reading at the Octopus Literary Salon on Saturday, August 19, 2017 from 7 pm until 9 pm. More info here. Grammy winning experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser will accompany me on electric guitar. Henry will also so a 20 minute solo set!!
Henry Kaiser and friends. Photo by Michael GoldbergPraise for the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy,including “Untitled”:
“Oral prose. School of Twain and Salinger. It’s improvised, and its immediate and delayed echoes, its ellipses, its obsessions, make music.” LARRY BECKETT, author of “Morning Glory” and “Paul Bunyan”
“Michael Goldberg’s sharply drawn characters, vivid musical nods, and keen eye for detail transport us back to the post-countercultural mid-1970s when sex and drugs and rock & roll were a way of life. In this third installment of the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, antihero Writerman takes us along for the rollercoaster ride – angel dust, anyone? – while he tries to make sense of a life littered with broken hearts. A page-turner.” HOLLY GEORGE-WARREN, author of “A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton”
“Relive the 1970s – the music, the dope, the clothes, the books, the confused and restless sexual politics – in all their filthy glory.” MARIA BUSTILLOS, author of “Dorkismo: the Macho of the Dork” and “Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman.”
“Michael Goldberg is comparable to Kerouac in a 21st centuryway, someone trying to use that language and energy and find a new way of doing it.” MARK MORDUE, author of “Dastgah: Diary of a Head Trip”
Michael Goldberg at The Octopus. Photograh by Wayne Hsiung“Goldberg presents us with a beautiful evocation of the Seventies where the music wasn’t just the soundtrack to our lives but the auteur of them. Writerman, our hero, drinks and drugs and dances to the nightingale tune while birds fly high by the light of the moon. Oh, oh, oh, oh Writerman!” LARRY RATSO SLOMAN, author of “On the Road with Bob Dylan”
“Radioactive as Godzilla.” RICHARD MELTZER, author of “The Aesthetics of Rock”
“Penned in a staccato amphetamine grammar, its narrative is fractured and deranged, often unsettling but frequently compelling, an unsparing portrait of the teen condition: assured then despairing, would-be sex god then impotent has-been, an only child battling the wills of his domineering father and interfering mom in the anonymous, suburban fringes of Marin County.” SIMON WARNER, author of “Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture”
“So who is this protagonist anyway? Holden Caulfield meets Lord Buckley?” PAUL KRASSNER, author of “Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture”
“‘True Love Scars’ reads like a fever dream from the dying days of the Summer of Love. Keyed to a soundtrack of love and apocalypse, Writerman pitches headlong into a haze of drugs, sex and confusion in search of what no high can bring: his own redemption. Read it and be transformed.” ALINA SIMONE, author of “Note to Self” and “You Must Go and Win”
“True Love Scars is deeply dialed in to rock’s dichotomy of enlightening powers versus stonered party time.” GREG M. SCHWARTZ, PopMatters
“Michael Goldberg reminds us of the difficulties of remaining true to our own visions amidst the powerful exigencies of young adulthood.” JOLIE HOLLAND, recording artist, whose albums include Catalpa, Escondida and The Living and the Dead
“Untitled” is now available in print and Kindle versions here.
Celebrating ex-Rolling Stone Senior Writer Michael Goldberg’s new rock ‘n’ roll novel, “Untitled,” Goldberg and Grammy winning experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser will collaborate on “a post-beat happening” at The Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland, CA on Saturday, August 19, 2017. Goldberg will read from his new novel while Kaiser improvises on electric guitar. Plus a solo set by Kaiser. Note that no meat will be served during this event! Free.
This will mark Goldberg and Kaiser’s third collaboration. When they appeared at The Octopus last year it was standing-room-only. Come early!
If you think you can attend, please go to the Facebook event page and clock “going” or “interested.”
Cover art, “Untitled,” by Leslie Goldberg.
What the critics say about Goldberg’s novels:
“Michael Goldberg’s sharply drawn characters, vivid musical nods, and keen eye for detail transport us back to the post-countercultural mid-1970s when sex and drugs and rock & roll were a way of life. In this third installment of the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, antihero Writerman takes us along for the rollercoaster ride – angel dust, anyone? – while he tries to make sense of a life littered with broken hearts. A page-turner.” – Holly George Warren, editor of “The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats” and the author of the acclaimed bio, “A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton”
“Oral prose. School of Twain and Salinger. It’s improvised, and its immediate and delayed echoes, its ellipses, its obsessions, make music.” – Larry Beckett, author of “Morning Glory” and “Paul Bunyan.”.
“Radioactive as Godzilla!” – Richard Meltzer, author of “The Aesthetics of Rock” and “Tropic of Nipples”
“Kerouac in the 21st Century.” – Dennis McNally, author of “Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation & America”
“Penned in a staccato amphetamine grammar…” – Simon Warner. author of “Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture”
“Holden Caulfield meets Lord Buckley?” – Paul Krassner, founder of The Realist
“Our hero drinks and drugs and dances to the nightingale tune while birds fly high by the light of the moon.” – Larry Ratso Sloman, author of “On the Road with Bob Dylan”
“Reads like a fever dream from the dying days of the Summer of Love.” – Alina Simone, musician, author of “Note to Self” and “You Must Go and Win”
“If Lester Bangs had ever published a novel it might read something like this frothing debut by longtime music journalist Michael Goldberg.” – Colin Fleming, Rolling Stone
Michael Goldberg at The Octopus. Photograh by Wayne Hsiung
Michael Goldberg was a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine for a decade. He has interviewed Jerry Garcia, Patti Smith, George Harrison, Captain Beefheart, Stevie Wonder, Sleater-Kinney, James Brown, Frank Zappa, Berry Gordy Jr., John Fogerty, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Black Flag, The Replacements, Flipper, Robbie Robertson, Sonic Youth and many more. In 1994 Goldberg launched the first Web music magazine, Addicted To Noise, and “invented music journalism on the web,” as journalist Denise Sullivan put it. Goldberg currently writes an occasional column, The Drama You’ve Been Craving,” for Addicted To Noise. His 10,000 word essay, “Bob Dylan’s Beat Visions,” will be included in the book “Kerouac On Record,” due from Bloomsbury in February 2018.
“Untitled,” the third of the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, is a story of love, friendship and the search for identity, set in the early ‘70s. Although it takes place in the past, themes running through the book — trying to live an authentic life, struggling against the powers that be, navigating the terrain between love and lust, loyalty and betrayal — are as relevant today as ever. Goldberg’s first novel, “True Love Scars,” was published in 2014; his second, “The Flowers Lied,” was published in 2016.
Henry Kaiser and friends. Photo by Michael Goldberg
Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California-based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 250 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks.
A restless collaborator who constantly seeks the most diverse and personally challenging contexts for his music, Mr. Kaiser not only produces and contributes to a staggering number of recorded projects, he performs frequently throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan, with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists. Among the numerous artists Kaiser has recorded or performed with are Herbie Hancock, Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Jerry Garcia, Steve Lacy, Fred Frith, Terry Riley, Negativland, Michael Stipe, Jim O’Rourke, Victoria Williams, Diamanda Galas and Cecil Taylor. Kaiser’s latest album, The Celestial Squid, was released last year.
The Octopus Literary Salon is located at 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland, CA 94612
In the third book of the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, “Untitled,” you’ll read about 19-year-old Michael Stein’s affair with 35-year-old feminist college teacher Susan “Simone” Braveheart, his unexpected reunion with Thee Freakster Bro, Jim Costello, and a crazy road trip to Big Sur with Simone that signals the end of their summer fling.
And you’ll be there when mysterious trouble girl Harper reappears, moves in with Michael Stein at Simone’s beach house and causes all kinds of, you guessed it, trouble.
Michael Stein is obsessed with sex. Only the sex is more than sex. Sex is the door to intimacy, and transcendence.
For Michael Stein, the Sixties ended in the nut house. Where they put the crazies. His parents blamed his erratic behavior on drugs. Michael Stein just blames himself.
Aware. Michael Stein is aware he has lived through one of the biggest social changes America has experienced. The trouble is, Michael Stein’s not aware that the biggest social change has already changed, moved on down the line.
The love is gone and all that’s left is the drugs.
The Freak Scene Dream Trilogy is one long deep breath. The exhale is obsessive, transgressive. How macho meets feminism. How second chakra rises up to third. Through all the women: Sarah, Elise, Jaded, Simone, Harper, Eve. A puff, a party, a tragedy—from marijuana to angel dust, teenage heartbreak to addiction, from “All You Need Is Love” to the junkie garage rock of the New York Dolls.
How the dream died and what there is left after.
If you dug “True Love Scars” or “The Flowers Lied,” come along for more of the ride as Writerman struggles to escape his past and invent a brave new life.
And if you didn’t read the first two books, never fear, “Untitled” is a stand alone novel that can be read and enjoyed without reading the other books.
“Untitled” by Michael Goldberg
Available August 2017.
Praise for the Freak Scene Dream trilogy
“Michael Goldberg is comparable to Kerouac in a 21st century
way, someone trying to use that language and energy and find a new way of doing it.” MARK MORDUE, author of “Dastgah: Diary of a Head Trip”
“Goldberg presents us with a beautiful evocation of the Seventies where the music wasn’t just the soundtrack to our lives but the auteur of them. Writerman, our hero, drinks and drugs and dances to the nightingale tune while birds fly high by the light of the moon. Oh, oh, oh, oh Writerman!” LARRY RATSO SLOMAN, author of “On the Road with Bob Dylan”
“Radioactive as Godzilla. RICHARD MELTZER, author of “The Aesthetics of Rock”
“Penned in a staccato amphetamine grammar, its narrative is fractured and deranged, often unsettling but frequently compelling, an unsparing portrait of the teen condition: assured then despairing, would-be sex god then impotent has-been, an only child battling the wills of his domineering father and interfering mom in the anonymous, suburban fringes of Marin County.” SIMON WARNER, author of “Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture”
“So who is this protagonist anyway? Holden Caulfield meets Lord Buckley?” PAUL KRASSNER, author of “Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture”
“‘True Love Scars’ reads like a fever dream from the dying days of the Summer of Love. Keyed to a soundtrack of love and apocalypse, Writerman pitches headlong into a haze of drugs, sex and confusion in search of what no high can bring: his own redemption. Read it and be transformed.” ALINA SIMONE, author of “Note to Self” and “You Must Go and Win”
“True Love Scars is deeply dialed in to rock’s dichotomy of enlightening powers versus stonered party time.” GREG M. SCHWARTZ, PopMatters
“Michael Goldberg reminds us of the difficulties of remaining true to our own visions amidst the powerful exigencies of young adulthood.” JOLIE HOLLAND, recording artist, whose albums include Catalpa, Escondida and The Living and the Dead
If you want to keep up with what I’m up to as a writer and blogger, please sign up for the Days of the Crazy-Wild Communique at:
Michael Goldberg at The Octopus. Photograh by Wayne Hsiung
Last night (March 30, 2017) I previewed a chapter of my new novel, “Untitled,” at The Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland. There was a nice sized audience at this venue, which has the best atmosphere for reading prose or poetry.
Here is the audio from my reading:
“Untitled” is the third book in a rock ‘n’ roll, coming-of-age trilogy titled, the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy. Each of the books stands alone, and at the same time is part of the bigger story.
There’s a lot of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in the book.
The chapter I read an excerpt from is mostly about the drugs, or rather, what it’s like tripping on the drugs. It takes place in 1973. Nixon is still in the White House, the Vietnam War is still going on as is the Watergate investigation. But all of that feels far, far away to the narrator, Michael Stein AKA Writerman.
The excerpt is about Michael Stein and his best friend, who he calls his “freakster bro,” Jim Costello. Jim is still recovering from being dumped by his first girlfriend, Jade Kaufman, who the narrator refers to as Jaded.
I think the excerpt speaks for itself, except there is one thing you need to know. The narrator has a cigarette lighter that he calls The Dylan. He stole it from Jerry Garcia, who told him that it had once belonged to Bob Dylan. How he came to know Jerry Garcia and steal the Dylan is detailed in my first novel, “True Love Scars.”
“Untitled” will be published in August of this year.
Photograph by Wayne HsiungPhotograph by Wayne Hsiung
I read before Larry Beckett, the poet/songwriter best known for the lyrics he wrote for many of Tim Buckley’s best songs. Larry read from his book “Paul Bunyan,” which is an epic poem that explores tall tales and the myth of America as bigger than life.
An Evening of Poetry & Prose: Larry Beckett & Michael Goldberg
Celebrated poet and songwriter Larry Beckett will be reading from his epic poem, “Paul Bunyan,” for the first time in the Bay Area at The Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland, CA on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Joining Larry Beckett will be novelist and former Rolling Stone Senior Writer Michael Goldberg, who will read from his new novel, “Untitled.” The reading will begin at 7 pm.
If you are interested in attending, please head over to the event Facebook page and let me know.
Larry Beckett’s “Paul Bunyan” re-tells the legend of the giant lumberjack for the twenty-first century. Drawing on logger folklore, James Stevens’ stories and the Davy Crockett almanacs, Larry Beckett’s poem is a modern epic in ‘long-winded’ blank verse. It is a celebration of the everyday poetry of colloquial North American English, loose and rough, bragging and unbelievable.
Larry Beckett’s songs have been recorded by musicians all over the world; “Song to the Siren,” which he wrote with Tim Buckley, has been covered by David Gray, Robert Plant, Bryan Ferry, George Michael and Sinead O’Connor. Larry Beckett’s other books include “Songs and Sonnets” and “Beat Poetry.” He has translated many poets, including Heraclitus, Goethe and Li Po. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
About “Paul Bunyan,” San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman wrote: “A terrific, epic-like poem based on the story of Paul Bunyan, in which Beckett creates a gigantic working-class type who is also everything and everyone. He’s mythic and his shibboleth is: Work. Beckett has written a rollicking, truly inventive long poem whose lines are sustained by a brilliant haiku-syllablation (each line has 12-15 syllables) coupled with images that bring the Bunyan myth right into the 21st Century. Certainly Beckett’s finest work to date.”
“Paul Bunyan” publisher’s page for more info is here.
Michael Goldberg is the author of three novels, “True Love Scars,” “The Flowers Lied” and “Untitled,” which comprise the Freak Scene Dream Trilogy, a rock ‘n’ roil coming-of-age story set in the late Sixties and early Seventies.
What the critics say about Goldberg’s novels:
“Radioactive as Godzilla!” – Richard Meltzer
“Kerouac in the 21st Century.” – Dennis McNally
“Penned in a staccato amphetamine grammar…” – Simon Warner
“Holden Caulfield meets Lord Buckley?” – Paul Krassner
“Our hero drinks and drugs and dances to the nightingale tune while birds fly high by the light of the moon.” – Larry Ratso Sloman
“If Lester Bangs had ever published a novel it might read something like this frothing debut by longtime music journalist Michael Goldberg.” – Colin Fleming, Rolling Stone
The Octopus Literary Salon is located at 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland, CA 94612
Jim Morrison performing at the KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, June 1967. Photo by Michael Goldberg.
My good friend David Monterey, a singer, songwriter and musician who leads the band, the String Rays, writes the Song Dog Music blog. Recently, the two of us had a long discussion about the Sixties West Coast Music Scene, particularly what we experienced as kids in the Bay Area.
Below I have posted video and song clips that compliment our words. Enjoy.
The Doors, Soul Kitchen, The Matrix, 1967 – the initial footage in this video clip is from the KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, June 1967
Big Brother, Down On Me, 1968
Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit, 1967
The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man, 1965
Pete Seeger, If I Had A Hammer, 1956
Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind, 1963
Sly and the Family Stone, Dance to the Music, 1969
Grateful Dead, Jack Straw, 1972
Jefferson Airplane, Plastic Fantastic Lover, 1968
Grateful Dead, St. Stephen,1969
Grateful Dead, Dark Star, 1969
Grateful Dead, Black Peter, May 15, 1970
Grateful Dead, Friend of the Devil, 1970
Robert Johnson, Hellhound on my Trail, 1937
Grateful Dead, Sitting on Top of the World- 1966 Trips Festival SF
Howlin’ Wolf, Sitting on Top of the World, 1957
Jefferson Airplane, Chauffeur Blues, 1966
Memphis Minnie, Chauffeur Blues (probably written by Minnie but credited to her producer lester Melrose), 1941
The Charlatans, Alabama Bound, 1965
Leadbelly, Alabama Bound
Lynn Hughes (who sang this song with The Charlatans), Devil, 1969
Skip James, Devil Got My Woman, 1931
Quicksiler Messenger Service, Who Do You Love?, 1968
Pau at Chinese dog meat farm. He was rescued and brought back to the U.S. this year.
[On Tuesday night (Sept. 20, 2016) the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution in solidarity with Chinese activists condemning the killing of dogs for food in China, and asking China to end the dog meat trade there. I thought this would be a good time to publish my recent article about activists who went to China earlier this year and rescued three dog meat dogs. This article originally appeared at The Daily Pitchfork.]
By Michael Goldberg
There was no sink, no bed, no toilet. The walls of the Chinese jail cell, in which US animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung found himself, were painted a bright blue. The lights were never turned off.
“I thought I could be held indefinitely, particularly when they claimed we were spies from the US government,” Hsiung said during an interview.
In early May of this year, six Chinese interrogators took turns going at him for 15 hours. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. Hsiung, co-founder of the international animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), faced questions about why he had planted hidden cameras at a slaughterhouse in Yulin, China, now infamous for its annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival.
Meanwhile, his activist colleague, Julianne Perry, an MBA student at Dartmouth, faced her own interrogation in the same jail.
“I thought of the suffragettes jailed dozens of times, freedom riders sending dozens of students to be jailed,” Perry said. “I took comfort that I would be in good company if I was kept in jail for speaking out against social injustice.”
Hsiung, a lawyer who had taught at Northwestern School of Law, was worried about what would happen not only to Perry, but the third member of his investigatory team, Chris Van Breen, a deeply compassionate activist from San Jose whose day job is working as a plumber and who was waiting for Hsiung and Perry at their rented apartment in downtown Yulin. Just as pressing on Hsiung’s mind was the fate of the three dogs they’d rescued a week earlier from a Yulin dog meat farm.
“My main concern was the safety of the dogs,” Hsiung said.
A week earlier, on April 25, 2016, Hsiung and the other two DxE members had arrived in China to investigate the dog meat trade.
“It was partly redemption,” Hsiung said, explaining one of his reasons for the investigation. “I remember seeing dogs suffering [in China] when I was 9 years old. I wanted to save some because I couldn’t when I was a child.”
Julianne Perry at dog meat farm in China.
The dog meat farm turned out to be a former pig farm. For Hsiung, it was ironic because DxE had recently investigated one of Hormel’s Farmer John farms and documented the horrific conditions.
The owner told Hsiung he had to switch to dogs after he was essentially driven out of the pork business by huge multi-national companies like Smithfield and Hormel. But the owner also told Hsuing that whether he raised pigs or dogs made no difference, to him they were all the same. As Hsiung later said, this was one thing they could both agree on.
While Hsuing said that farms in the US are much worse that the dog meat farm he saw; but it was still a hellhole of a place: filthy and dilapidated with piles of old wood and other garbage scattered about and a rusty gate leading inside, where Hsiung’s found seven dogs confined in cement-walled pens.
Hsiung returned to the farm with Perry and Van Breen the next day to rescue three dogs, who are brothers and who they later named Pao, Lao and Xiao. “This was death row,” Van Breen said. “Every animal there was born to be murdered.”
The three dogs were covered with fleas and ticks, their skin was red, they were losing their fur and their bellies were distended. The DxE team took the dogs to a vet where they were de-fleaed and de-ticked. With Van Breen and Perry caring for the dogs at the apartment, Hsiung began part two of the investigation at a slaughterhouse in Yulin.
