Marty Jezer was a writer, columnist, activist and self-help exemplar who was well known in Brattleboro and beyond. Narrated by his long-time partner artist and writer Arlene Distler with commentary from Jezer’s friends and associates Steve Minkin and Judy Ashkenaz, the podcast gives a sense of Marty’s style and commitment to political dialogue. We learn about his books on Abbie Hoffman ('Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel', upon which the film 'Steal This Movie"' was largely based) and others, his attempt to start a new ‘Citizens Party" and relationship with US Senator Bernie Sanders, his daughter Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who is also a writer, and his weekly column in the daily Brattleboro Reformer. We hear from stuttering expert Woody Starkweather who reflects on how Marty’s autobiography 'Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words' remains a beacon for the stuttering community. We hear how Marty co-founded with Distler the Brattleboro writers' group 'Write Action,' which is a founding partner in the Brattleboro Words Project. We learn of his love of jazz, especially 'scat' and hear an example from singer Mary LaRose, and how each year scholarships in Marty's name are given to local students studying both jazz and journalism. We hear Distler read her poem 'Centering' about Marty's last days before he succumbed to cancer in 2005. The podcast ends with the image friends carrying Marty’s coffin along South Main Street to the tune of 'Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” to his final resting place at Shir Harim cemetery. He would have loved that.
This episode of the Brattleboro Words Trail was written and narrated by Arlene Distler. Additional narration was Judy Ashkenaz, Steve Minkin and Woody Starkweather. Producer and Executive Producer was Lissa Weinmann. Editing was Austin Rice with post production by Alec Pombriant. Mastering was by Guilford Sound. Musical selection for opening and closing music was Jeff Lederer's “Right Action” from his 2021 album 'Eightfold Path' and Mary LaRose for scatting in “Tinees Blues”. Special thanks to the crew at BCTV for great studio support.
Brattleboro Words Trail MARTY JEZER / COMMON GROUND
Host: Welcome to the BRATTLEBORO WORDS TRAIL PODCAST
Music ‘Right Action’ by Jeff Lederer begins
NARRATOR ARLENE DISTLER: Marty Jezer was a Brattleboro journalist and activist from the 70s, right up to his last reformer column, weeks before he passed in 2005 he wrote several noteworthy books, created his weekly newspaper column, gave hope to stutterers, and though beloved by many, was a great love in my life.
My name is Arlene Distler, journalist on the arts, poet, painter and Marty's partner for the last 13 years of his life, Marty lived in Southern Vermont from 1966 to 2005 he was a hero in this very liberal and literary town, but his renown As a journalist, author, activist, biographer and self help exemplar certainly went well beyond Brattleboro and beyond Vermont, and though he had a severe stutter, he did not let it hold him back.
Marty was born in the Bronx in 1940. He moved to Manhattan as a young man and was active in the Peace move movement there in the 60s, where he was a cohort of Abby Hoffman's and Bayard Rustin and wrote for Win magazine, a publication of the war resisters League. He arrived in Southern Vermont in 1966 as part of Packer corners commune in nearby Guilford, part of a group of English majors from Boston University. Many of these people have had an impact on Brattleboro's literary and community life.
Marty played an important part in Brattleboro's burgeoning activist community. His friend and fellow activist, Judy Ashkenaz, describes Marty's early days in Brattleboro and how she first met him at the common ground restaurant, a gathering place for activists of the time that was above Everyone's Books on Elliot Street.
JUDY ASHKENAZ: My husband David and I met Marty in the spring of 1976 in the Common Ground restaurant on Elliott Street. We were new to town, and we showed up for a meeting of a new organization called the Energy Coalition of Southern Vermont, which was advocating for public ownership of utilities. This was a complicated concept, and Marty volunteered to write a press release explaining what it was all about. He went back into the kitchen, where we could hear him banging away at a manual typewriter. A few minutes later, he re emerged with the finished press release. I remember being impressed. It always knocks me out to see somebody produce copy that way, fast and to the point..
I quickly learned that Marty's writing talents went well beyond press releases in Win magazine, the publication of the war resisters league in 1978, he channeled the old Abbott and Costello routine in a piece called who's on first urging the anti nuclear movement to get beyond its single minded emphasis on the tactic of non violent direct action and instead to take A more analytical and strategic approach to organizing against nuclear power.
In 1980 with Jimmy Carter's presidency in the doldrums, Marty persuaded David and me to get involved with his latest organizing project, launching a new political party to be called the Citizens Party, with the environmentalist Barry Commoner as its presidential candidate. Always on the lookout for political language that would reach beyond the already mobilized. Marty saw promise in the very American sounding idiom of a ‘citizens party.’
Our new political party had to have a newsletter, of course, and it was Marty who gave that newsletter a name: ‘The Windham County Optimist’, and he came up with its mission statement, posing the question, why the optimist?: “ We're not Pollyannas,” Marty wrote, “Nor are we crazy. We'll readily agree things don't look so hot in the world. One antidote to despair is awareness, another is action, to speak out in the political arena for what we believe, values that we cherish.”
Riffing on the classic 60s exhortation to ‘question authority.’ Marty once wrote that he'd like to add a slightly different take: Question assumptions. In the last decade or so of his life, his weekly column in the Brattleboro Reformer gave him a platform for doing just that. In many ways, Marty was the Windham county optimist. More than many of us, he kept alive the best qualities of the 60s, the political awareness, yes, but also the humor, the outrageousness tempered by self awareness and most of all, the willingness to speak in plain language and to take on BS wherever he encountered it, even on his own side. .
INSERT INTERLUDE MUSIC (from ‘Right Action’ tape by Jeff Lederer)
Marty’s weekly column in the Brattleboro Reformer covered everything from local politics and community life to pressing national and international issues. Here is a memory shared by Steve Minkin, one of Marty’s friends and devoted readers:
STEVE MINKIN: Marty's column in the reformer on Fridays was always a much anticipated event, and Marty wanted feedback. He didn't want to wait, so he made sure that he took on a position as a bagger, a voluntary position for Co Op hours every Friday afternoon, so that people who had read the column can tell him what they thought about it. I'd like to share with you a gem. It's a column he wrote after visiting the site of the World Trade Center disaster, so called ‘Ground Zero’ where the buildings had collapsed following the terrorist attack. The title of his column is, ‘We still need heroes’. And even as I read it today. I think although it was true then it may even be truer today.
Here's an excerpt from Marty's piece:
"I experienced the goodness of America in one visit to Ground Zero, seeing the outpouring of emotions scrawled or hung on fences, sign posts, and buildings. This was not orchestrated by powerful political leaders pursuing an agenda. It was populist patriotism, something eloquent... always heartfelt and authentic in its disorder. On the perimeter, police pose with tourists. On the side streets, immigrants of all races, religions and ethnic origins sold patriotic souvenirs. I felt, in them, the energy and hopefulness of my forebears--all the immigrants who, in their difficult assimilation, have defined what we are. This is a time for heroism. On 9/11 police and firemen ran into burning buildings to save lives. The new heroes will have to withstand the flames of heated rhetoric, speak some unpopular truths, and stand up for reason, civility and, most of all, the rule of law, domestic and international. It won't be easy, but it will be patriotic." End Quote.
INTERLUDE MUSIC
DISTLER: Marty volunteered for Bernie Sanders campaigns and became a respected friend of Vermont's long time US senator. He was influential in Sanders call for getting big money out of politics
In his last decades, Marty worked with activist Randy Kehler and the working group on electoral democracy to devise a way to pay for elections democratically. The working group created a legislative template that has become law in Maine and Arizona and stands as inspiration for many on the left and right.
Marty wrote many books, including history books for young people on topics as diverse as the Civil War and Rachel Carson. He wrote the dark ages life in the United States 1945 to 1960 an exploration of the popular culture and currents in post war America. It's been used in university social studies classes across the country. Abbie Hoffman, American rebel is a biography of the yippie activist who was a well known figure in the anti war movement. It's written with personal insight. The book became the primary source material for the film on Hoffman's life ‘Steal, This Movie’ starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Janine Garoffolo.
Perhaps one of Marty's greatest contributions was his last book, ‘Stuttering: A Life Bound up in Words.’ This memoir dealt with his lifelong challenge with severe stuttering. The book stressed self acceptance, rather than focusing on a cure. It made him an inspiration and a mentor for people who suffer with this disability. Two of Marty's friends who are leaders in the stuttering community comment on what Marty meant to them. Reviewed on the website of Minnesota State University, which has a strong speech pathology program. The book is described as poignant, real and hugely courageous.
One leader in the stuttering community comments on what Marty meant to him:
WOODY: I'm Woody Starkweather, a speech pathologist specializing in stuttering and a normally disfluent person. After meeting Marty, I read his autobiography, Stuttering: A Life Bound Up In Words. It was cogent and eloquent, funny and sad. He understood himself and his stuttering as well as anyone could tangled in the thicket of this disorder of disfluent speakers. He wrote: “They decide to speak and they do it. Stutterers agonize over the mechanics of speech, and this feeling feeds our anxiety about speaking and heightens the stress that causes our speech mechanism to break down”.
I wanted to work with Marty on his stuttering. I was sure I could help him talk with less effort. He agreed to the work, but I think because he wanted to please me. We had only one session when he told me it just wasn't that important. He had more important things to do. I remember feeling disappointed. His was an unusual reaction in my experience, but the more I think about it, the more impressive I find his stance. He really did have more important things to do.
FADE IN MUSIC INTERLUDE WITH SCATTING ‘TEENIE’S BLUES’ by Mary LaRose
DISTLER: Marty was also an avid jazz fan. When he was working on a piece of writing, whether his column or something else, he would ‘scat’ – a kind of singing with nonsense words (SCATTING VOICE RISES AS EXAMPLE) It helped get to give his writing rhythm and flow, and I think settled him comfortably into his happy place. It allowed him to write from his soul, his inner music.
In 2000 Marty and I co-founded a writer's non profit called Write Action, now going into its 25th year. Its mission was and remains to bring together local writers to network and support one another's work and to encourage, nourish and promote the literary arts in the Brattleboro area.
Two awards set up in Marty's name continue to help young people. One is a Senior Award for journalism at Brattleboro Union High School. The other a scholarship for a jazz student each summer at the Vermont Jazz Center summer program. Marty had a particular connection to young people, and so it seemed an appropriate way to honor him. A very engaged father also, it is perhaps not surprising that his daughter, Catherine, is an accomplished writer herself.
I’m going to read a poem I wrote for Marty when he was battling cancer.
CENTERING (by Arlene Distler)
Sometimes with your new frailness
we barely touch,
link body to body
the way a potter
joins thumbs to allow palms
to press down and in
on the clay, centering it.
Linking hands this way
we are stilled, as it stills the potter,
allowing the unformed clay
to be opened, shaped
into a vessel
that will be filled
and used to fill.
Marty is buried at the Shir Harim Cemetery. His friends carried his casket down South Main Street, accompanied by a jazz band playing ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’. He would have loved it.
(MUSIC RISES AND FADES, then Brattleboro Words Trail theme music rises)
ALEC POMBRIANT READS CREDITS: This episode of the Brattleboro Words Trail was written and narrated by Arlene Distler. Additional narration was Judy Ashkenaz and Steve Minkin. Producer was Lissa Weinmann. Editing was Austin Rice with post production by me, Alec Pombriant. Mastering was by Guilford Sound. Musical selection for opening and closing music was Jeff Lederer “Right Action” and Mary LaRose for scatting in “Tinees Blues”. Special thanks to the crew at BCTV for great studio support.
Thanks for listening. We look forward to seeing you again next month on .. the Brattleboro Words Trail Podcast.
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