Phil Ochs: The Chords Of Fame

“If there’s any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there’s any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara” ~ Phil Ochs

One of the great unheeded lessons Phil Ochs left behind was to avoid mistaking celebrity fame for political substance. This drove him crazy as he yearned to be as famous as Elvis or Dylan.

"Phil Ochs was the political songwriter Bob Dylan should've been" ~ Billy Bragg

Ochs seemed oblivious to the fact that celebrities are ultimately commodities celebrated by fans who place consumerism above other attachments, especially revolution. Most fans have already bought into the system and have relinquished any commitment to fundamentally changing the status quo.

"God help the troubadour who tries to be a star"

By the time a "Presley-Guevara" hybrid emerges, the fan's priority becomes obtaining a piece of the product, not engaging in any form of social change. In the end, maybe this is what killed Phil Ochs - a fan of both Elvis and John Wayne - the realization that he had been playing the chords of fame, mistaking celebrities for revolutionaries.

"So play the chords of love, my friend
Play the chords of pain
But if you want to keep your song
Don't, don't, don't 
Don't play the chords of fame"

Santa Clara: ¡Viva la Revolución!?

"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." ~ Che

Santa Clara is where Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos won the Cuban revolution. 270 km east of Havana, in the centre of the island, the university town of Santa Clara is now home to all things Che, including his monument and mausoleum.

On December 29, 1958, Che and his men ambushed an armoured train full of Fulgencio Batista's soldiers and ammunition. With his arm in a sling from a previous injury, Che had successfully broken the dictator by splitting the country's supply lines in half. On January 1, 1959, at 3 a.m., Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic with over $300 million stuffed in his suitcase.

On January 2, Fidel Castro's soldiers took over Havana and within days he and his comrades were welcomed as heroes. When Yuko and I entered Santa Clara recently, we were welcomed and pulled in all directions...Cuba is now a country where a surgeon makes barely $30 a month. It's a sad testament to the failure of a once glorious revolution, a failure that can't be blamed solely on Washington or on the Castro brothers. If Cuba was ever truly for Cubans, then Havana must ultimately bear the brunt for its people's desperate living conditions.

Che: Dreaming The Impossible

(Che fishing with Fidel, 1960)

Che Guevara has been labeled everything from a bloodthirsty Stalinist to a humanitarian saint, but one epithet he can't be smeared with is traitor. His devotion to revolutionary struggle was so implacable that Alberto Korda's ubiquitous Guerrillero Heroico portrait has become synonymous with anything to do with "rebel chic." As a result, much of Che's legacy has been drained of its vitality by the culture industry's relentless branding prowess.

At least Cuba has managed to retain a modicum of Che's dignity intact, ironically as a result of its isolation from the rest of the world. The hero of the Cuban Revolution was an Argentine doctor. He wasn't a Stalinist or a saint. He was a man for all times; a realist who dreamed the impossible.