What's Johnny Burnette and "You're Sixteen" doing here? Read on, as we explore the world of groupies, pop/rock music and PEDOPHILIA. Ooooooh.
Can you be 81 years old and with no real evidence considered a “dangerous sex offender?” That’s the warped thinking behind the anonymous finger-pointers who demanded that an arts & crafts festival in Upstate New York CANCEL their booking of Peter Yarrow (who was born May 31, 1938.) The charge? “He’s a pedophile!” The truth? He is NOT. A putz once, but a pedophile, never. But some spineless twat went along with the mob and assured them she had told Peter Yarrow to STAY HOME.
What’s Yarrow been doing for the past 39 years since his odd brush with the law? He started “Operation Respect,” a non-profit that helps children who have been bullied at school. The aim of Yarrow’s group? To make sure there’s a “respectful, safe, and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social, and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule, and violence.” That’s a guy to disinvite to a summer festival of arts, crafts and song? The organization has a branch called “DLAM” (“Don’t Laugh at Me”) which works with summer camps and after-school programs to make sure kids are protected.
Yarrow was part of Peter Paul and Mary, the group that made Dylan a star by turning “Blowin’ In the Wind” into a hit, and performing in Washington, D.C. at a rally for Martin Luther King Jr. The trio were deeply involved in good causes. Yarrow later produced the Festival For Peace (at Madison Square Garden), worked for groups trying to get aid to Jews persecuted in the Soviet Union, and performed in Ho Chi Minh City for the “Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange.” He received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace, and freedom.”
Wherever there was a good cause, from Occupy Wall Street to the Academy of Education, Peter Yarrow was there. Never a word about him being anything but a kind and giving gentleman. In this #METOO era, nobody's come out to say, "Yeah, this guy tried to molest me" or "This guy attacked me." They say that about hedge fund weasel Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire who struck a deal to avoid major prosecution, but is currently getting backlash.
It's outrageous that a 39 year-old “scandal," the subject of an obscure Facebook post from an obscure bunch of arts and crafts clowns in upstate New York, ended up as NATIONAL NEWS. Yes, Associated Press spread it all over:
The articles pointing at Peter didn’t bother to list Yarrow’s contributions since the incident, or this fact: Noel Paul Stookey is a true Christian, and he never stopped working with his friend Peter Yarrow. I’ve met both these guys, and they are truly nice, caring individuals. I knew of Paul's solo Christian albums, and talked with him at length about them, and about his beautiful song "Sebastian" which he confided was an unusual transmogrification -- the song about a boy's arrival was rooted in his recollection of getting a new guitar!
I probably spent only about five minutes when I met Yarrow. He was tired after a performance, and after signing autographs for EVERYONE who asked, and taking pix with parents and their kids. I did ask him if the Phil Ochs movie he was in, “Chords of Fame.” It was a docudrama featuring a guy playing Phil, and spliced-in real interviews with Phil’s small circle of friends. I asked Peter if it was ever going to get released on DVD. Peer just sort of sighed and shook his head helplessly, which meant “how would I know about something I did years ago that is out of my hands?” But he was patient and nice about it.
Here’s the story of what happened, and why he is NOT a pedophile. Go back to 1969. The “Summer of Love” led to Woodstock, with hippies getting naked and literal flower children naked too, and unashamed. People didn’t think “PEDO” for a girl to be topless on the cover of a Blind Faith album. A new word was coined: GROUPIE. Yes, free-lovin’ chicks were taking drugs and pursuing rock stars, and targeting anybody famous, even a putz folkie like Peter Yarrow.
When two chicks came to his hotel room, he wasn't checking ID cards, his libido had taken control. One girl was 17. Even The Beatles could tell you: “she was just seventeen, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” Her sister was 14, but may have looked older. "Indecent liberties" isn't quite the same as being Aqualung and stalking kiddies in a park. It was a lapse in judgment, but not with the evil intent of pedophile priests and their trickery. The girls were not molested or kept against their will. But he was reported and did three months in jail. This happened in Washington, D.C. If it happened in New York City, it would’ve been a mere misdemeanor. If it happened in the South, he would’ve been asked if he wanted to marry the 14 year-old, with Jerry Lee Lewis as best man.
President Jimmy Carter officially pardoned Peter Yarrow in 1980. This helped Yarrow and his group perform internationally and appear at charity events without question. EXCEPT…one in a while, somebody would bring up the incident and ask what happened. Yarrow could have said "no comment" but instead he would again offer an apology and hope that people would have some tolerance since he did his time and never had a problem again.
So far, Yarrow's other gigs this summer are still ongoing. These include solo performances and performances with Noel Paul Stookey. Strange isn’t it, that our President has been accused of 22 sexual predator incidents but has successfully ignored them. Mr. "Grab the Pussy" has not been impeached, even though another president suffered the ignominy even if his incident involved a consenting adult, a woman who made the first move by pulling up the waistband of her thong undies and snapping it for him. We also had Senator Al Franken forced out of office because of a joke photo and a few grumbles about how he touched a few asses when these women cuddled up to him to waste his time for selfies.
What’s next? Ringo Starr could be forced into retirement because he’s over 70 and prances around the stage singing “You’re Sixteen…and you’re MINE…” People don't seem to know the difference between being offended, and being a sanctimonious Harper Valley hypocrite, or what a true PEDO really is. He's Jared, the guy from SUBWAY who insisted he could only be satisfied by underage girls. He's England's notorious Jimmy Savile. It's not a term to be thrown around recklessly, and it's a shame that on social media ignorant people are saying, "This Peter Yarrow lefty, he's a PEDO." As if he's spent his life asking pimps to get him teens, or gone to the Far East to find virgins, or used his influence the way Jeffrey Epstein did.
Was Jerry Lee Lewis or Edgar A. Poe a pedo for marrying young? In many parts of the world it's not uncommon for someone even 13 to get married. At least Jerry and Edgar were involved in consensual situations, and when asked to stop, Peter Yarrow stopped. “You’re Sixteen,” which was a hit in 1961 for Johnny Burnette. Johnny was born in 1934. So here’s a guy, 26 or 27, singing lustily about a 16 year-old, and doing it on national TV and having a hit.
You remember the lyrics? The words were happily telling a generation of listeners that 16 was old enough for ANYTHING:
You come on like a dream, peaches and cream
Lips like strawberry wine
You're sixteen, you're beautiful and you're mine
What is the song talking about? Alcohol and sex. “Lips like strawberry wine.” WTF. “You come on like a dream.” What does that mean? A wet dream? “And you’re mine.” In the Biblical sense? This was sung on TV by a guy TEN YEARS older than his 16 year-old sweetie??
This was not the only song about TEENAGE LUST. There were dozens and dozens of them. From “Wake Up Little Susie” to the very adult Sam Cooke singing “Only Sixteen,” the idea of a girl being a WOMAN in her teens was not unusual then, and certainly, considering high school teen pregnancies as an epidemic, not unusual NOW.
What next? The Burnette song gets pulled from YouTube? Ringo gets hauled off stage and banned from ever performing "You're Sixteen?" As Peter and his friends sang long ago, "The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind..."
Peter Yarrow may not be a pedophile, but he definitely likes young women.
ReplyDeleteI was in the front row at the 30th Anniversary Concert in Dallas in 1991: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/peter-paul-and-mary/1991/coca-cola-starplex-amphitheatre-dallas-tx-63fd32a3.html
Got there early when PPM were doing their sound checks. Two seats over in the same row and to my right from me was a very attractive girl. She couldn't have been a day over 18 years old. After the sound check, Peter comes over and sits next to her and started making out with her -- heavily. At the time, I actually wondered if they might start having sex right there in the front row! I looked at my girlfriend, who was wide-eyed and sitting to my left, and silently mouthed "Damn, Peter! Get a room!" At the time, I knew nothing of the earlier allegations made against him.
Does what I witnessed in 1991 make Peter Yarrow a pedophile? No. I think the whole "cancel culture" and "#metoo" nonsense has totally gone off the rails. The problem is in perception of one's deeds: Sometimes people do good things to "appear doing good things." Also, a pattern in someone's life (like being fond of young girls) can come back to haunt them later when the culture shifts and vilifies and stigmatizes formerly acceptable behavior. I can only imagine how many women, young and old, who were fond of Peter, and threw themselves at him, and how difficult it would be to resist temptation.
Groupies were once willing participants. Now they're "victims of the patriarchy."
If I had a hammer....
I read the report and he refuses to take responsibility for it. "you know - a groupie" ahhh no... a CHILD.... NOT a groupie - it said he stopped short of intercourse- and who CARES if he was pardoned. His takes have clearly NOT changed - he likes them very very young and that is disgusting 14 is very clearly young. very very young. he is disgusting and SHOULD be cancelled and should have been from that moment on. He should TAKE responsibility instead of the Polanski method of just "oh she wanted it because she was there so I could anally rape her" no. no no. no. cancel. bye. and always hated your simpy music anyway. and writing a children's book? DISGUSTING.
ReplyDeleteI suppose there should be some line in the sand between the true "pedophile" (who has a sick desire for those who are most definitely pre-pubescent) and the "teenophile" (this would include Edgar Allan Poe, Jerry Lee Lewis among others) who marries somebody 13 or 14 or 15. We also know that in some of these United States it's "legal" to marry someone who is...what, sexually functional in terms of menstruation or producing sperm.
ReplyDeleteAs for Peter, I must admit, I was a bit surprised, with some percentage knowing about "the incident," that he would do anything that might raise eyebrows. I was at a book signing that included his singing partner Mr. Stookey. They signed autographs, and talked to the fans. I noticed Peter reach out and hold the hands of a girl who was probably about 18, and answer a few fan questions she was asking. Or whatever it was. She thanked him and the line moved forward. But I did think to myself...Peter, maybe somebody was watching who might worry about what happened, or be part of the "cancel culture" and be in a position to turn you and Paul down for a gig.
Don't have any way of verifying whether or not the two emails I received a few years ago in response to a question I asked about this very topic on a webpage were true or not...but...
ReplyDeleteOne woman who wrote to me stated she and Yarrow shared a cab in NY years ago when she was in her early 20's (he was much older) and he began asking her up to his apartment, etc. before her part of the ride ended. The next day, she showed up at the appointed hour. She was unaware of "the incident" years before and he offered to look over some songs she had written...she showed up with her (also female) cousin with her ("so HE wouldn't have the wrong idea", she said) and after tea and a little conversation, he told her he wished to hear her sing her songs for him so they went into his studio in his apartment after he gave her cousin the TV remote and some magazines and told her to "entertain herself" while he gave the young woman's songs a listen...surely nothing would happen with her cousin right there in the apartment, right? Well, she said, after about 5 minutes of banter, he proceeded to tell her how lovely she was, and how she must surely have "lots of admirers", then held her hand, then leaned in for a kiss, then his hands began roaming all over her body....at which point she said "I sort of froze up and realized what an idiot I'd been" and she then said the only thing she could think of that could she felt could get her out that situation: "I just suddenly said, very loudly" 'Oh my God, I think I'm going to throw up..I'm so sorry....I feel so sick" she reached for the door after pushing him away and found he had locked it from the inside (one of those little push button type locks you can lock without being noticed when you close the door). "I twisted the knob sort of frantically and the door opened and I ran out into the hall proclaiming I needed some cold water and some air." Peter, she said, quickly came after her, very solicitously offering her something to sip on until she felt better, but she said she needed to leave, and she and her cousin did so, with Peter seeing them to the door and hailing them a cab. He told her to call him when she got home so he would know she was OK, and, as he had given her his number but had failed to secure hers, and he asked for her number, so she scribbled down a fake number and she and her cousin left. What amazed me was that she had initially been concerned that HE would have the wrong idea.
Dr Brian Talarico, North Bay Psychiatrist Has been convicted of child molestation, and possession of child pornography on his computer. Sexually molesting a young boy. He had prior convictions for child molestation in 1990 and 2001. After his parole in 2006. Dr. Talarico Brian Works for North Bay Regional Health Centre, and elsewhere, despite his background, and numerous complaints against him of abuse, fraud, negligence, and imprisonment. he has a sexual preference for younger boys, feeds them antipsychotics, and rapes children... he's extremely harmful, and dangerous.
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