For nearly a quarter of a century, I have found solace in the above quote whenever someone close to me dies. I first invoked it as a hopeful mantra when my father died when I was fifteen and now I turn to it once again upon learning of the sad news of Howard Zinn’s passing.

Like many, I was lucky enough to learn from Zinn by discovering his work at a time in life where it served as an antidote to the harmful illness that makes it seem that “America is a day,” a way of living in the world where there is no sense of history or hope for the future. This anti-history took on new shape and meaning for those of us with the misfortune of attending grade school during the Reagan years. I’m sure more than a few of you remember those old world maps where the U.S. was placed squarely in the center and was seemingly five times larger than it actually is. Or that Russia was the “Evil Empire” and the U.S. the “shining city of the hill.”

History seemed more like a Saturday morning cartoon where we always win, nothing really bad happens to us, and we really do nothing bad to anyone. I couldn’t find myself or my family in any of the “we’s,” “us,’” or “anyone’s.”

In Howard Zinn’s direct, sincere and often fiery voice, I first heard the words that fit the snapshots of the life and history I knew. His words imbued with compassion, the main ingredient of courage, helped push me down the difficult yet rewarding path of thinking for others.

Zinn was great at moving people, inspiring so many to aspire for something better. The millions of books bearing his name still sold all over the world that come to rest on bookshelves after the reader mark entire pages, underline sentences, and scribble notes in the jacket, are just a small indication of his impact.

As someone who first began to understand the world through do-it-yourself popular culture movements like punk rock, Zinn’s DIY approach to history and citizenship made me understand that my families story—immigrant, working class, union people—was not only relevant it was real and important: it was the people’s history.

There are moments in life that serve as validation, a sign that you are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. For me, that moment presented itself when I sought out Zinn to discuss a recent article, book, and even film I was working on (I’ve been privileged to be published alongside him in the pages of The Progressive). At each request, he spoke openly and thoughtfully, offering me all he knew. A friendship blossomed and when I told him that the subject of my current book, Johnny Cash, admired his work, Zinn was humbled. “Really?” he told me. “Well, isn’t that something because I found him quite extraordinary.”

As I reflect on the many accomplishments of Zinn’s life, I look once again to the quote listed above for it best describes how Howard Zinn lived his life. Zinn dedicated himself to the fight against forgetting and the struggle to honor history by telling the truth. For me, his work did more than pour a blazing light into the cracks of American history spackled over by the powerful to conceal the true stories that are shared by the majority of human beings: he made the invisible insurrection of the human spirit shine like a beacon in the dense fog of history.

As history is known to do, it played the ironic jester as the publication of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States coincided with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The two arose out of the same historical era but represented the present and future American epoch with drastically divergent ideas and worldviews. One believed in the American spectacle, the other in the American people. Both would alter the political and cultural landscape of America forever. And on the day that we lost Zinn, history once again showed its biting wit, as history takes another step forward as America’s first Black President, one that Zinn was so willing to critically press to step-up to the challenge of “hope,” was due to deliver his first State-of-the-Union address.

Here is where we must not mourn Zinn, nor relegate him to the dustbin of history remembered only with one-dimensional clichés. We must honor him by not forgetting what a people’s history is and what it represents for it is the quiet revolution of the human spirit, which never stops moving forward no matter how many attempts are made to pull it back and keep it silent. This is the true significance of Zinn’s work: there is only truth when there is honesty. We must be honest with our history, we must be vigilant against the forces that oppose democracy, and we must be steadfast in the pursuit of justice. We must be sovereign as a people.

Just a few days ago, I had spoken with Zinn. He had graciously made himself available in the coming months to participate with me in a few public events for my current book and film. He spoke in a hopeful tone that there were many young, strong voices out in the world. He mentioned writers like Dave Zirin, Jeremy Scahill and dropped my name in there. I was deeply moved by his belief in my work. I can only hope that now his words and how he lived will continue to arouse compassion and courage. In the end, Howard Zinn will never stop informing us on our ultimate responsibility of being human.

-Antonino D’Ambrosio

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Antonino D’Ambrosio on “Let Fury Have the Hour” from Let Fury Have the Hour on Vimeo.

During the premiere of the trailer for “Let Fury Have the Hour,” Antonino takes the opportunity to speak about his aspirations for the film, while introducing some of the most important participants and champions of LFHTH; Jack Healey, Wayne Kramer, and Shepard Fairey.

(video filmed by Joshua Gibson)

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Jack Healey “Hunt for the Perfect World” from Let Fury Have the Hour on Vimeo.

Jack Healey speaks at the event “A Furious Heartbeat.”

“As the poet hunts for the perfect word, the artist hunts for the right painting or the right color, we humans should hunt for the perfect world.”

(video shot by Joshua Gibson)

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No Free Lunch from Let Fury Have the Hour on Vimeo.

Produced, written and directed by Antonino D’Ambrosio, No Free Lunch features brilliant comedian Lewis Black of the hit Comedy Central political news satire show, The Daily Show. Presented by the Service Employee International Union (SEIU)— a union representing nearly 2 million public service workers including nurses, hospital staff, nursing home care providers, building services and security guards— No Free Lunch is the first film in a series aimed at addressing economic injustice and income inequality in America. Using the political satire of Lewis Black, the film directly exposes the effects private equity has had on workers and the American economy. In many ways, the film presaged the current economic crisis in the United States, which private equity helped to stoke.

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A few days ago my friend Hilary sent me an email about the passing of her young friend. Carlos Alvarez died a week ago of a heart attack. He was 29 years old.  He died doing what he loved: dancing.  As Hilary tells me, “Carlos was a truly an inspired dancer, artist, chaos-embracer… who had been straight for the last two years and had turned into an organic farmer.”  Hilary explained that someone at Alvarez’s memorial recounted the young dancer’s meeting with Joe Strummer:

“I would have to say my favorite memory, would be bearing witness to the one and only Mr. Joe Strummer of the Clash, bowing down before Carlos, actually getting down onto his hands…and knees, and licking Carlos’s boots, right there in front of everybody.  That is how impressed this man, who had seen it all, was with Carlos Alvarez’s dancing.”

This posting is supposed to be about Joe Strummer, a quick thumbnail sketch of the musician and man.  Yet, I could find no better representation of the Joe Strummer who first moved and inspired me, first when I was 12 years old, a son of immigrants living in the Philadelphia area, then to share the story of a late young artist who made Strummer drop to his knees in praise.

Strummer’s legacy is a powerful one, reverberating throughout the world just as if his faithful Telecaster has been left plugged in while leaning against a stack of amplifiers broadcasting on a global bandwidth.  Everyone stills hears Joe Strummer and more importantly are still moved by him.  The journey that began when I first heard “Clampdown” with it’s message that there are no obstacles only opportunities and indeed there was power in positive-thinking has lead me to encounter a “community of rebels” everywhere I travel as we near completion on the film Let Fury Have the Hour.

Joe Strummer’s ever-present Telecaster guitar, which he performed with for over twenty-five years. Photo taken moments before Strummer took the stage at St. Anne’s Warehouse. April 2002. Photo: Antonino D’Ambrosio

Writing about Joe Strummer has less to do with summarizing his myriad accomplishments like leading the best rebel-rock-band–of-all-time or his efforts on behalf of Rock Against Racism, his work with Amnesty International and to a larger extent the global human rights movements.  It’s the Carlos Alvarez’s of the world who followed the lead of Joe Strummer and the Clash and then tried to go further, higher, and deeper.  It’s about redemption and never giving up.  It’s about believing, as Picasso famously said, that art is the lie that shows us the truth.  It’s about dismissing the game of politics and reveling in the beauty of humanity.  It’s about rejecting the idea of success or failure and getting up each day and just trying.

Maybe Strummer’s first-ever published words about his work with the Clash sum it up the best:  “I think people ought to know that we’re anti-fascist, we’re anti-racist, we’re pro-creative.  We’re against ignorance.”  (from the introduction of Let Fury Have the Hour).

I leave you with this—not a eulogy for Carlos Alvarez or Joe Strummer—but a challenge to come together and not shrink in the face of the cowards, hucksters, and reactionary scoundrels who push us backwards.  It’s time to stop looking above for heroes but from side-to-side, at one another, our neighbors, and communities in countries around the world.  We are all in this together and we all posses the power to be heroes.  And that’s exactly what Joe Strummer believed.  Carlos Alvarez knew it and lived it.

There are those that struggle one day and they are good.  There are others who struggle a year and they are better.  There are some that struggle many years and they are very good.  But there are others that struggle their whole lives and these are the heroic ones.
–Bertolt Brecht  (epigraph from Let Fury Have the Hour)

Antonino D’Ambrosio, Colli Al Volturno, Italy–Philadelphia, PA–Brooklyn, NY

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Joe Strummer (front) and Tymon Dogg. Strummer performing a set of shows with his new band the Mescaleros at St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY April 2002. Strummer died a few months later on December 22, 2002. Photo: Antonino D’Ambrosio

As the writer, director and producer of Let Fury Have the Hour, I would like to take a moment to welcome you all to our virtual home. Here you will be able to keep up with all that is happening with the film as we travel around this country and the globe tracking the movement of world citizenship. Over three decades ago a punk band out of London launched a counter-culture movement within a counter-culture. Where the Sex Pistols got a disenfranchised generation to yell and scream, the Clash gave people a reason to yell and scream and more importantly the hope that if they acted—in anyway—they could do something about it and maybe change things for the better. With Joe Strummer writing the lyrics to songs that became anthems calling for people to unite, the band challenged their fans to look at themselves and the world around them and ask the simple yet daring questions:

Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?

Joe Strummer himself posed these questions to me—first when I heard the music when I was twelve-years old growing-up in and around the Italian immigrant community in West and Northeast Philadelphia–and then some nineteen years later as I sat with him backstage after he performed with the Mescaleros at St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. It was April 2002 and Strummer was deeply concerned about the state of the world, particularly the United States’ march to war in Iraq. We spoke for hours and never did he once seem pessimistic about where we as a people—citizens of the world—were headed. With a refreshing mix of sincerity and authenticity, Strummer reinforced his belief that even though the world may sometimes be a scary place it is indeed worth fighting for. Reiterating what he had told others many times before he leaned over and told me, “Ya know Antonino, sometimes you just gotta say ‘the hell with it, we’re going to win this time.’” And that’s what this film does, shouting out from every corner of the globe: “This World is Worth Fighting For.”

Antonino D’Ambrosio, Colli Al Volturno, Italy–Philadelphia, PA–Brooklyn, NY

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Let Fury Have the Hour Teaser Trailer from Let Fury Have the Hour on Vimeo.

This teaser communicates some of the broad elements of style and subject matter that audiences can expect when watching the theatrical release of Let Fury Have the Hour.

The film aims to both inspire and entertain by harnessing the best of what individuals from all walks of life, from all over the world, have to say about how art, music and culture has the ability to bring us all into a closer understanding of each other.

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