A few months ago, a town administrator randomly called Pete Seeger’s representation to see if he would play a free concert in the town band shell. Our summer concert series usually consists of someone sweeping away used rubber and cigarette butts from a cement platform and then a polka band plays to a hundred old folks and over dressed housewives. But surprisingly, Seeger said yes, so our little town had the biggest free concert ever.
The audience was still fairly old. 70 year old women with sensible haircuts and big beads. It was a swarm of HIllary voters.
The concert was good fun. It was like living in a PBS special. Pete Seeger is 89 and still singing Turn, Turn, Turn. Sure, he forgot the words, but allowances must be made. There’s a good humored, innocence about the old coot that made the night surprisingly fun.
Apt. 11d 
Innocence? “Useful fool” might be more like it. Or perhaps my memory is colored by the day I gave up on National Public Radio. For Labor Day 1990 (the year after Communism crumbled in Europe) “All Things Considered” decided to sign off with Mr Seeger singing “The Internationale.” That might have been the last time I tuned in for All Things or for anything else that service offered.
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Buddy of mine has The Internationale as his cell phone ring tone. Mostly, it passes unremarked, but sometimes in a bar somebody shows recognition. He well knows about the evils of communism, but he thinks it’s sort of funny. It’s not like wearing a Che T-shirt. Pete Seeger is indeed a useful fool, about as culpable as Eric Hobsbawm and more charming.
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I gotta think about this. Why do I think the Internationale is cute, and the Horst Wessel song would be odious? Probably they should either both be cute, or both odious.
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