Flash: A Novel
Jim Miller
Language: English
Pages: 196
ISBN: 1849350256
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"'This remarkable novel is nothing less than a secret history of southern California—a radical past that might yet redeem our future."—Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz
A chance encounter with a faded "Wanted!" poster in a San Diego library sends journalist Jack Wilson on a wild adventure through southern California's radical past. As Jack searches for the truth about I.W.W. outlaw Bobby Flash, he uncovers a hidden history of real-life revolutionaries . . . and learns a powerful lesson about the importance of family in the process.
Jim Miller is a labor educator and activist in San Diego, California.
Murder, Money & Marzipan (Lexy Baker Bakery Mystery, Book 3)
A Cat Tells Two Tales (Alice Nestleton Mystery, Books 1-2)
The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, Book 5)
Covet (Novel of the Fallen Angels, Book 1)
Summer Treason, Danny Haase (Book 1)
job in an insurance records warehouse in Pacoima. There, my job was to unload boxes from a huge truck that came every morning at nine. Once I had my mountain of boxes, the truck left and, for the rest of the day, I was supposed to shelve the boxes in numerical order until there were no more boxes. My “supervisor” was a cool Chicano guy in his early thirties named Cheno. Cheno sat at a desk by the door, read the newspaper, and listened to the radio. If it wasn’t for the music, we would both have
unbelievable. The next day I checked the Times on a hunch and there it was: “Wanted, factory workers. Will Train. Contact Royal Ribbon Company.” I got the internship with Word on the Street, so I started doing a little bit of everything for them—reviews, reporting, editing. It was great. To pay the bills, I got a job at a home repair company, that consisted of Dan, the owner, and whoever happened to be working with him that week. We painted houses on the cheap, put in tile floors, replaced
movies. The Nuart was showing The Who movies The Kids are Alright and Quadrophenia, which seemed appropriate at the time for some reason. I remember sitting in the dark theater waiting for the light show to start for what seemed like a long time, until, slowly, the edges of everything rounded, and the quality of sound changed dramatically. It was as if I was hearing inside of the music, note by note. Pete Townsend’s guitar chords exploded in my head like the Fourth of July and Roger Daltrey’s
loft complex. They were good people and there was lots of stirring talk. Shane always found people like that, wherever he was. During one visit around New Years we went to a party at a loft where everybody was doing ecstasy. It wasn’t like a rave with lots of bad loud disco and teenagers jumping up and down with pacifiers in their mouths. Here people were just lying around on big couches and rapping about things. I did some and it was nothing like the acid trip. I got the oceanic thing going and
down some rickety stairs into the dark until he found the light switch. After I was done blinking, I was astounded to see the walls lined with shelves stuffed full of cardboard boxes. On the floor there was a row of steamer trunks. Pete made his way over to one and opened the lid to dig around. “What is all this?” I asked, feeling as if I had stumbled into some kind of Hardy Boys mystery. “Personal effects,” Pete said. “The old boys didn’t just leave me their posters.” He dug through a stack of