Girl on the Bridge (French: La fille sur le pont) is a 1999 French film shot in black and white and directed by Patrice Leconte, starring Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis.

Plot[link]

The plot centres around knifethrower Gabor (Auteuil) and a girl called Adèle (Paradis), who intends to kill herself by jumping from a bridge. Gabor, who is also about to jump from the bridge, intervenes to prevent the suicide and persuades Adèle to become the target girl in his knifethrowing act. The film then follows their relationship as they travel around Europe with the act. Their companionship and teamwork mean great luck for both of them. Then they get separated and their lives once again become luckless. The film ends on a bridge in Istanbul, this time with her saving him from suicide.

Cast[link]

• Vanessa Paradis as Adèle
• Daniel Auteuil as Gabor
• Frédéric Pfluger as Contortionist
• Demetre Georgalas as Takis
• Catherine Lascault as Irene
• Isabelle Petit-Jacques as Bride
• Mireille Mossé as Miss Memory
• Didier Lemoine as TGV ticket conductor
• Mylène Farmer as Irene (uncredited guest appearance in a hallway and beside the stage)
• Bertie Cortez as Kusak
• Stéphane Metzger as Italian waiter
• Claude Aufaure as Suicide victim
• Farouk Bermouga as TGV waiter
• Nicolas Donato as Mr. Loyal
• Enzo Etokyo as Italian megaphone
• Giorgios Gatzios as Barker

Release[link]

Paramount Classics acquired the United States distribution rights to this film and gave it a limited U.S. theatrical release on July 28, 2000; the film went on to gross $1,708,839 in U.S. theaters,^[1] which was a good result for a non-English film. Ruth Vitale (president of Paramount Classics at that time) declared herself pleased with the film's performance in the U.S. market.^[2] However, Paramount did not release the film on DVD until July 2008.

See also[link]

Film portal

• Impalement arts

References[link]

External links[link]

• Girl on the Bridge at the Internet Movie Database
• Girl on the Bridge at Rotten Tomatoes
• Official Site (US)

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Tom Waits
Waits during an interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2007
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Alan Waits
Born	(1949-12-07) December 7, 1949 (age 62) Pomona, California, United States
Genres	Rock, experimental
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, composer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, guitar
Years active	1972–present
Labels	Asylum Records, Island Records, ANTI-
Website	Official website

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."^[1] With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music,^[2] Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places—although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[3][4]

Waits lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children.

Origins and musical beginnings[link]

Waits was born at Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, California to Jesse Frank Waits and Alma Johnson McMurray, both schoolteachers.^[5][6] His father was of Scots-Irish descent and his mother was a Norwegian American. After Waits' parents divorced in 1960, he lived with his mother in Whittier, and then moved to National City, in San Diego County, near the Mexico–United States border.^[6] Waits, who taught himself how to play the piano on a neighbor's instrument, often took trips to Mexico with his father, who taught Spanish; he would later say that he found his love of music during these trips through a Mexican ballad that was "probably a Ranchera, you know, on the car radio with my dad."^[7]

By 1965, while attending Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista,^[6] Waits was playing in an R&B/soul band called The Systems and had begun his first job at Napoleone Pizza House in National City (about which he would later sing on "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)" from Small Change and "The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)" on The Heart of Saturday Night).^[5] He later admitted that he was not a fan of the 1960s music scene, stating, "I wasn't thrilled by Blue Cheer, so I found an alternative, even if it was Bing Crosby."^[8] Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego—where artists of every genre performed—when he did his first paid gig for $6.^[5] A fan of Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin' Wolf, and Charles Bukowski, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style.

After serving with the United States Coast Guard,^[9] he took his newly formed act to Monday nights at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, where musicians would line up all day for the opportunity to perform on stage that night. In 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A. (at the time, also home to musicians Glenn Frey of the Eagles, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, and Frank Zappa) and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21. From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of demo recordings for Cohen's Bizarre/Straight label, including many songs for which he would later become known. These early tracks were released twenty years later on The Early Years, Volume One and Volume Two.

1970s[link]

Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972,^[10] and after numerous abortive recording sessions, his first record—the jazzy, folk-tinged Closing Time—was released in 1973. The album, which was produced and arranged by former Lovin' Spoonful member Jerry Yester, received positive reviews, but Waits did not gain widespread attention until a number of the album's tracks were covered by more prominent artists. Later in 1973, Tim Buckley released the album Sefronia, which contained a cover version of Waits' song "Martha" from Closing Time, the first-ever cover of a Tom Waits song by a known artist.^[11] This cover later appeared in the 1995 compilation Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits. The album's opening track, "Ol' '55", was recorded by the Eagles in 1974 for their On the Border album.^[11]

He began touring and opening for such artists as Charlie Rich, Martha and the Vandellas, and Frank Zappa. Waits received increasing critical acclaim and gathered a loyal cult following with his subsequent albums. The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), featuring the song "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night", revealed Waits's roots as a nightclub performer, with half-spoken and half-crooned ballads often accompanied by a jazz backup band.^[12] Waits described the album as:

...a comprehensive study of a number of aspects of this search for the center of Saturday night, which Jack Kerouac relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see.^[13]

In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard^[14] and released the double album Nighthawks at the Diner, recorded in a studio with a small audience in order to capture the ambience of a live show. The record exemplifies this phase of his career, including the lengthy spoken interludes between songs that punctuated his live act. That year, he also contributed backing vocals to Bonnie Raitt's "Your Sweet and Shiny Eyes", from her album Home Plate.

By this time, Waits was drinking heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll. Waits, looking back at the period, has said,

I was sick through that whole period [...] It was starting to wear on me, all the touring. I'd been traveling quite a bit, living in hotels, eating bad food, drinking a lot — too much. There's a lifestyle that's there before you arrive and you're introduced to it. It's unavoidable.^[15]

In reaction to these hardships, Waits recorded Small Change (1976), which finds him in a much more cynical and pessimistic mood, lyrically, with many songs such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening with Pete King)" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)". With the album, Waits asserted that he "tried to resolve a few things as far as this cocktail lounge, maudlin, crying-in-your-beer image that I have. There ain't nothin' funny about a drunk [...] I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out."^[16] The album, which also included long-time fan favorite "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)", featured famed drummer Shelly Manne and was, like his previous albums, heavily influenced by jazz.

Small Change, which was accompanied by the double A-side single "Step Right Up"/"The Piano Has Been Drinking", was a critical and commercial success and far outsold any of Waits's previous albums. With it, Waits broke onto Billboard's Top 100 Albums chart for the first time in his career (a feat Waits would not repeat until 1999 with the release of Mule Variations).^[17] This resulted in a much higher public profile, which brought with it interviews and articles in Time, Newsweek, and Vogue. Waits put together a regular touring band, The Nocturnal Emissions, which featured Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, Fitzgerald Jenkins on bass guitar, and Chip White on drums and vibraphone. Tom Waits and the Nocturnal Emissions toured the United States and Europe extensively from October 1976 until May 1977,^[17] including a performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking" on cult BBC2 television music show the Old Grey Whistle Test in May 1976.^[18]

Foreign Affairs (1977) was musically in a similar vein to Small Change, but showed further artistic refinement and exploration into jazz and blues styles. Particularly noteworthy is the long cinematic spoken-word piece, "Potter's Field", set to an orchestral score. The album also features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers." The album Blue Valentine (1978) displayed Waits's biggest musical departure to date, with much more focus on electric guitar and keyboards than on previous albums and hardly any strings (with the exception of album-opener "Somewhere" — a cover of Leonard Bernstein's song from West Side Story — and "Kentucky Avenue") for a darker, more blues-oriented sound. The song "Blue Valentines" was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits' vocal. Around this time, Waits had a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones^{[citation needed]} (who appears on the sleeve art of the Blue Valentine album). In 1978, Waits also appeared in his first film role, in Paradise Alley as Mumbles the pianist, and contributed the original compositions "(Meet Me in) Paradise Alley" and "Annie's Back in Town" to the film's soundtrack.^[19]

Heartattack and Vine, Waits's last studio album for Asylum, was released in 1980, featuring a developing sound that included both ballads ("Jersey Girl") and rougher-edged rhythm and blues. The same year, he began a long working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who asked Waits to provide music for his film One from the Heart. For Coppola's film, Waits originally wanted to work with Bette Midler; she was unavailable due to prior engagements, however. Waits ended up working with singer/songwriter Crystal Gayle as his vocal foil for the album.

1980s[link]

In August 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, a screenwriter, whom he had met while working on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola movie One from the Heart. Brennan is regularly credited as co-author of many songs in his later albums, and Waits often cites her as a major influence on his work. She introduced him to the music of Captain Beefheart. Despite having shared a manager with Beefheart in the 1970s, Waits says, "I became more acquainted with him when I got married."^[20] Waits would later describe his relationship with Brennan as a paradigm shift in his musical development. After leaving Asylum, the label released the first Tom Waits "Best of" album in 1981, a collection called Bounced Checks, notable for including an alternate, stripped down version of "Jersey Girl" and the otherwise unreleased "Mr. Henry", as well as an alternate master of "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard" and a live performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking". During this period, Waits appeared in a series of minor movie roles, including a cameo role in Wolfen (1981) as an inebriated piano player, and his song "Jitterbug Boy" also appeared on the movie's soundtrack. One from the Heart received its official theatrical release in 1982, with Waits appearing in a cameo as a trumpet player as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for Original Song Score (eventually losing out to Victor Victoria, by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse). This marked the first in a series of collaborations between Waits and Coppola, with Waits appearing in cameos in Coppola's movies The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), and The Cotton Club (1984), and a major role in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Waits also contributed two songs to the documentary Streetwise (1984), "Rat's Theme" and "Take Care of All My Children".

After leaving Asylum for Island Records, Waits released Swordfishtrombones in 1983, a record that marked a sharp turn in his musical direction. While Waits had before played either piano or guitar, he now gravitated towards less common instruments, saying, "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone."^[21] Swordfishtrombones also introduced instruments such as bagpipes ("Town with No Cheer") and marimba ("Shore Leave") to Waits' repertoire, as well as pump organs, percussion (sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), horn sections (often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music), experimental guitar, and obsolete instruments (many of Waits' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin).

His songwriting shifted as well, moving away from the traditional piano-and-strings ballad sound of his 1970s output towards a number of styles largely ignored in pop music, including primal blues, cabaret stylings, rumbas, theatrical approaches in the style of Kurt Weill, tango music, early country music and European folk music as well as the Tin Pan Alley-era songs that influenced his early output. He also recorded a spoken word piece, "Frank's Wild Years", influenced by Ken Nordine's "word jazz" records of the 1950s. Apart from Captain Beefheart and some of Dr. John's early output, there was little precedent in popular music.

Waits's new emphasis on experimenting with various styles and instrumentation continued on 1985's Rain Dogs, a sprawling, 19-song collection which received glowing reviews (the album was ranked #21 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.) Contributions from guitarists Marc Ribot, Robert Quine, and Keith Richards accompanied Waits' move away from piano-based songs, in juxtaposition with an increased emphasis on instruments such as marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo. The album also spawned the 12" single "Downtown Train/Tango Till They're Sore/Jockey Full of Bourbon", with Jean Baptiste Mondino filming a promotional music video for "Downtown Train" (which would later become a hit for Rod Stewart), featuring a cameo from boxing legend Jake LaMotta. The album peaked at #188 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart; however, its reputation has come to far outshine low initial sales.

Franks Wild Years, a musical play by Waits and Brennan, was staged as an Off-Broadway musical in 1986, directed by Gary Sinise,^[22] in a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater. Waits himself played the lead role. Waits developed his acting career with several supporting roles and a lead role in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law in 1986, which also featured two of Waits's songs from Rain Dogs in the soundtrack. In the same year, Waits also contributed vocals to the song "Harlem Shuffle" on The Rolling Stones' album Dirty Work.^[23]

In 1987, he released Franks Wild Years (subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts"), which included studio versions from Waits' play of the same name. Rolling Stone summed up the album's myriad styles this way: "Everything from sleazy strip-show blues to cheesy waltzes to supercilious lounge lizardry is given spare, jarring arrangements using various combinations of squawking horns, bashed drums, plucked banjo, snaky double bass, carnival organ and jaunty accordion."^[24] Waits also continued to further his acting career with a supporting role as Rudy the Kraut in Ironweed (an adaptation of William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, in which Waits performed the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", as well as a part in Robert Frank's Candy Mountain, in which Waits also performed "Once More Before I Go." In 1988, Waits performed in Big Time, a surreal concert movie and soundtrack which he cowrote with his wife.

In 1989, Waits appeared in his final theatrical stage role to date, appearing as Curly in Thomas Babe's Demon Wine, alongside Bill Pullman, Philip Baker Hall, Carol Kane, and Bud Cort. The play opened at the Los Angeles Theater Center in February 1989 to mixed reviews, although Waits' performance was singled out by a number of critics, including John C. Mahoney, who described it as "mesmerizing."^[25] Waits finished the decade with appearances in three movies: as the voice of a radio DJ in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train; as Kenny the Hitman in Robert Dornhelm's Cold Feet; and the lead role of Punch & Judy man Silva in Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale. His only musical output of the year consisted of contributing his cover of Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love" to the soundtrack of the Al Pacino movie of the same name^[26] and contributing vocals to The Replacements song "Date to Church", which appeared as a B-side to their single "I'll Be You".

1990s[link]

The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets—a theatrical collaboration of Waits, director Robert Wilson, and writer William S. Burroughs—premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on March 31, 1990. The project was based on a German folktale called Der Freischütz, with Wilson responsible for the design and direction, Burroughs for writing the book, and Waits for music and lyrics, which were heavily influenced by the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.^[27] In the same year, Waits contributed a cover of Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me" to Red Hot + Blue, the first in the series of compilation albums from the Red Hot Organization — one of the first major AIDS benefits in the music business—which sold over a million copies worldwide. Jim Jarmusch directed a promotional music video for the song.^[28] Waits also collaborated with photographer Sylvia Plachy in the same year; her book Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour includes a short Waits record to accompany the photographs and text.

The following year, Waits was extremely busy working on movie soundtracks, acting, and contributing to a number of music projects by other artists. First, Waits appeared on the Primus album Sailing the Seas of Cheese as the voice of "Tommy the Cat", which exposed him to a new audience in alternative rock. This was the first of several collaborations between Waits and the group; Frontman Les Claypool would appear on several subsequent Waits releases. The same year saw Waits provide spoken word contributions to Devout Catalyst, an album by one of Waits' greatest influences, Ken Nordine, on the songs "A Thousand Bing Bangs" and "The Movie." Waits also contributed vocals to a duet with singer Bob Forrest on the song "Adios Lounge" on the Thelonious Monster album Beautiful Mess. He also contributed vocals to two songs ("Little Man" and "I'm Not Your Fool Anymore") on jazz tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards' album Mississippi Lad. Edwards was extremely complimentary of Waits' contributions, saying:

Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract [sic] with PolyGram. He's wonderful, he's America's best lyricist since Johnny Mercer. He came down to the studio on the Mississippi Lad album, that's the first one I did for PolyGram, and he sang two of my songs, wouldn't accept any money, just trying to give me the best boost that he could.^[29]

The only collection of exclusively Waits-performed material of 1991 appeared when Waits composed and conducted the almost exclusively instrumental music for Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film Night on Earth, which was released as an album the following year. In July 1991, Screamin' Jay Hawkins released the album Black Music for White People, which features covers of two Waits compositions: "Heartattack & Vine" (which later that year was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit) and "Ice Cream Man". Waits continued to appear in movie acting roles, the most significant of which was his uncredited cameo as a disabled veteran in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and Jamie Lee Curtis in Steve Rash's Queens Logic, and opposite Tom Berenger and Kathy Bates in Hector Babenco's film At Play in the Fields of the Lord, adapted from Peter Matthiessen's 1965 novel.

Bone Machine, Waits's first studio album in five years, was released in 1992. The stark record featured a great deal of percussion and guitar (with little piano or sax), marking another change in Waits' sound. Critic Steve Huey calls it "perhaps Tom Waits's most cohesive album... a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative—and often harrowing—effect... Waits' most affecting and powerful recording, even if it isn't his most accessible."^[30] Bone Machine was awarded a Grammy in the Best Alternative Album category. On December 19, 1992 Alice, Waits's second theatrical project with Robert Wilson, premiered at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Paul Schmidt adapted the text from the works of Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, in particular), with songs by Waits and Kathleen Brennan presented as intersections with the text rather than as expansions of the story, as would be the case in conventional musical theater. These songs would be recorded by Waits as a studio album 10 years later on Alice.^[31] 1992 also saw Waits featuring in Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula, as the possessed lunatic Renfield.

In 1993, he released The Black Rider, which contained studio versions of the songs that Waits had written for the musical of the same name three years previously, with the exceptions of "Chase the Clouds Away" and "In the Morning", which appeared in the theatrical production but not on the studio album. William S. Burroughs also guests on vocals on "'Tain't No Sin". In the same year, Waits lent his vocals to Gavin Bryars' 75-minute reworking of his 1971 classical music piece Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet; appeared in Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Carver's stories Short Cuts and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, a short black-and-white movie with Iggy Pop; and his third child, Sullivan, was born. In 1997, Waits and Brennan wrote and performed the music for Bunny the animated short film by 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, which was awarded Best Animated Short Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 1995, Holly Cole released Temptation, a tribute album consisting entirely of Waits covers.

Another Waits cover was released in 1996, as Meat Loaf covered Martha for his concept album Welcome to the Neighborhood.

In 1998, after Island Records released the compilation Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years, Waits left the label for Epitaph, whose president, Andy Kaulkin, said the label was "...blown away that Tom would even consider us. We are huge fans."^[32] Waits himself was full of praise for the label, saying "Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians. They have good taste and a load of enthusiasm, plus they're nice people. And they gave me a brand-new Cadillac, of course."^[32]

Waits's first album on his new label, Mule Variations, was issued in 1999. Billboard described the album as musically melding "backwoods blues, skewed gospel, and unruly art stomp into a sublime piece of junkyard sound sculpture."^[33] The album was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist. The album won a Grammy in 2000; as an indicator of how difficult it is to classify Waits's music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song "Hold On"), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy. The album was also his highest-charting album in the U.S. to date, reaching #30.

The same year, Waits made a foray into producing music for other artists, teaming up with his old friend Chuck E. Weiss to coproduce (with his wife, Kathleen Brennan) Extremely Cool, as well as appearing on the record as a guest vocalist and guitarist. He also contributed a cover of Skip Spence's "Books of Moses" to More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album, a collection of covers of the singer's songs on Birdman Records.^[26] The same year, Waits appeared in the comedy Mystery Men.

2000s[link]

John Hammond's Wicked Grin, a collection of Waits cover songs, was released in 2001. Waits appears on most songs, playing guitar, piano, and/or offering backing vocals. The album also includes the traditional hymn "I Know I've Been Changed", performed as a duet by Hammond and Waits.

Tori Amos included a cover of the song "Time", from Rain Dogs on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls.

Tom Waits in Prague in 2008

In 2002, Waits simultaneously released two albums, Alice and Blood Money. Both collections had been written almost 10 years previously and were based on theatrical collaborations with Robert Wilson; the former a musical play about Lewis Carroll, and the latter an interpretation of Georg Büchner's play fragment Woyzeck. Both albums revisit the tango, Tin Pan Alley, and spoken-word influences of Swordfishtrombones, while the lyrics are both profoundly cynical and melancholic, exemplified by "Misery is the River of the World" and "Everything Goes to Hell." "Diamond in Your Mind", which Waits wrote for Wilson's Woyzeck, did not appear on Blood Money; however, it did emerge on Solomon Burke's album Don't Give Up on Me of the same year. While Waits has played the song live a number of times,^[34][35] an official version would not be released until 2007. The same year, Waits contributed a version of "The Return of Jackie and Judy"^[26] by The Ramones to the compilation album We're a Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones, which was released in 2003 on Columbia Records. That same year, Waits was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.^[36] Waits was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.^[36]

Waits released Real Gone, his first nontheatrical studio album since Mule Variations, in 2004. It is Waits's only album to date to feature absolutely no piano on any of its tracks. Waits beatboxes on the opening track, "Top of the Hill", and most of the album's songs begin with Waits's "vocal percussion" improvisations. It is also more rock-oriented, with less blues influence than he has previously demonstrated. The same year, Waits contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Tell It on the Mountain" on the Grammy Award (Best Traditional Gospel Album)-winning album of the same name by The Blind Boys of Alabama. He also contributed a version of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong"^[26] to the tribute album The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered, released on Gammon Records.

At this time, Waits made a return to acting after a five-year break, marked at first by the re-release of his 1993 Jim Jarmusch-directed short Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, costarring Iggy Pop, compiled in Coffee and Cigarettes. In 2005, Waits appeared in the Tony Scott film Domino as a soothsayer. In the same year, Waits appeared as himself in Roberto Benigni's romantic comedy La Tigre e la Neve, set in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. In the movie, Waits appears in a dream scene as himself, singing the ballad "You Can Never Hold Back Spring"^[26] and accompanying himself at the piano.

A 54-song three-disc box set of rarities, unreleased tracks, and brand-new compositions called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards was released in November 2006. The three discs are subdivided relating to their content: "Brawlers" features Waits's more upbeat rock and blues songs; "Bawlers", his ballads and love songs; and "Bastards", songs that fit in neither category, including a number of spoken-word tracks. A video for the song "Lie to Me" was produced as a promotion for the collection. Orphans also continues Waits's newfound interest in politics with "Road to Peace", a song about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The album is also notable for containing a number of covers of songs by other artists, including The Ramones ("The Return of Jackie and Judy" and "Danny Says"), Daniel Johnston ("King Kong"), Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ("What Keeps Mankind Alive"), and Leadbelly ("Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" and "Goodnight Irene"), as well as renditions of works by poets and authors admired by Waits, such as Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac and a previously released duet with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse entitled "Dog Door". Waits' albums Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards and Alice are both included in metacritic.com's list of the "Top 200: Best-Reviewed Albums"^[37] since 2000 at #10 and #20, respectively (as of November 2009). The same years, Waits appeared on Sparklehorse's album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, playing piano on the track "Morning Hollow."

Five different versions of Waits's song "Way Down in the Hole" have been used as the opening theme songs for the HBO television show The Wire. Waits's own version, from Frank's Wild Years, was used for season two. The other versions used for the series were performed by, in season order, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, "DoMaJe" and Steve Earle.

Waits made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances between 2006 and 2010. In November 2006, Waits appeared on The Daily Show and performed "The Day After Tomorrow." This was significant for his having been only the third performing guest on the show, the first being Tenacious D and the second The White Stripes. On May 4, 2007, Waits performed "Lucinda" and "Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" from Orphans on the last show of a week Late Night with Conan O'Brien spent in San Francisco. There was a short interview after the last performance. Waits also played in the Bridge School Benefit on October 27–28, 2007 with Kronos Quartet.

On July 10, 2007, Waits released the download-only digital single "Diamond In Your Mind". The version of the song was recorded with Kronos Quartet, with Greg Cohen, Philip Glass, and The Dalai Lama at the benefit concert "Healing The Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation" at Avery Fisher Hall, recorded on September 21, 2003.

Waits's song "Trampled Rose" (from Real Gone) appeared on the critically acclaimed album Raising Sand, a collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Waits also provided guest vocals on the song "Pray" by fellow ANTI- artists The Book of Knots on their album Traineater.^[38]

He played the role of Kneller in the film Wristcutters: A Love Story, which opened in November 2007.

On January 22, 2008, Waits made a rare live appearance in Los Angeles, performing at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services—The House of Justice, a nonprofit poverty law center.^[39]

On May 7, 2008, Waits announced the Glitter and Doom Tour starting in June 2008, touring cities in the southern United States and subsequently announced a series of dates in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.^[40] Waits was awarded the key to the city of El Paso, Texas during a concert on June 20, 2008.^[41] In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, The Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli described Waits' music thus:

The 58-year-old Mr. Waits ... has composed a body of work that's at least comparable to any songwriter's in pop today. A keen, sensitive and sympathetic chronicler of the adrift and downtrodden, Mr. Waits creates three-dimensional characters who, even in their confusion and despair, are capable of insight and startling points of view. Their stories are accompanied by music that's unlike any other in pop history.^[42]

On May 20, 2008 Scarlett Johansson's debut album, entitled Anywhere I Lay My Head, featured covers of ten Tom Waits songs. Waits made an appearance on the album The Spirit of Apollo by alternative hip hop project N.A.S.A., on the track "Spacious Thoughts."

Waits wrote the following introduction for the Tompkins Square compilation People Take Warning – Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913–1938:

In the late 1920's and early 1930's, the Depression gripped the Nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds. This collection is a wild garden grown from those seeds.

In late 2009, Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was released, with Waits in the role of Mr. Nick.^[43][44] Production began in December 2007 in London.^[45] Star Heath Ledger's death in January 2008 cast doubt on the film's future, but the production was salvaged with the addition of new actors playing his character in scenes he did not complete.^[46]

2010s[link]

Waits played the role of "The Engineer" in the film The Book of Eli, opposite Denzel Washington, which opened in January 2010.

He is working on a new stage musical with director and long-time collaborator Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh.^[47]

In early 2011, Tom Waits completed a set of 23 poems entitled Seeds on Hard Ground, which were inspired by Michael O'Brien's portraits of the homeless in his upcoming book, Hard Ground, which will include the poems alongside the portraits. In anticipation of the book release, Waits and Anti- printed limited edition chapbooks of the poems to raise money for Redwood Empire Food Bank, a homeless referral and family support service in Sonoma County, California. As of January 26, 2011, four editions, each limited to a thousand copies costing $24.99US each, sold out, raising $90,000 for the food bank.^[48]

It was announced on February 9, 2011, that Waits was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday, March 14, 2011, at 8:30pm EST.^[49] Waits accepted the award with his customary humor, stating, "They say I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with... like it's a bad thing."^[50]

On February 24, 2011, it was announced via Waits' official website that he has begun work on his next studio album.^[51]

Waits said through his website that on August 23 he would "set the record straight" in regards to rumors of a new release.^[52] On August 23, the title of the new album was revealed to be Bad as Me,^[53] and a new single, also titled "Bad as Me," started being offered via Amazon.com and other sites.^[54] The album was released on October 24.

Waits appears on the songs "Fadin' Moon" and "Ghost to a Ghost" on Hank Williams III's 2011 album Ghost to a Ghost/Gutter Town.

Lawsuits[link]

Waits has steadfastly refused to allow the use of his songs in commercials and has joked about other artists who do (commenting "If Michael Jackson wants to work for Pepsi, why doesn't he just get himself a suit and an office in their headquarters and be done with it?"). He has filed several lawsuits against advertisers who used his material without permission. He has been quoted as saying, "Apparently, the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad — ideally, naked and purring on the hood of a new car", he said in a statement, referring to the Mercury Cougar. "I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor."

Waits filed his first lawsuit in 1988 against Frito-Lay. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an award of $2.375 million in his favor (Waits v. Frito-Lay, 978 F. 2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992)).^[55] Frito-Lay had approached Waits to use one of his songs in an advertisement. Waits declined the offer, and Frito-Lay hired a Waits soundalike to sing a jingle similar to Small Change's "Step Right Up", which is, ironically, a song Waits has called "an indictment of advertising". Waits won the lawsuit, becoming one of the first artists to successfully sue a company for using an impersonator without permission.

In 1993, Levi's used Screamin' Jay Hawkins' version of Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" in a commercial. Waits sued, and Levi's agreed to cease all use of the song and offered a full page apology in Billboard.^[56] Waits found himself in a situation similar to his earlier one with Frito Lay in 2000 when Audi approached him, asking to use "Innocent When You Dream" (from Franks Wild Years) for a commercial broadcast in Spain. Waits declined, but the commercial ultimately featured music very similar to that song. Waits undertook legal action, and a Spanish court recognized that there had been a violation of Waits's moral rights in addition to the infringement of copyright. The production company, Tandem Campany Guasch, was ordered to pay compensation to Waits through his Spanish publisher. Waits was later quoted as jokingly saying the company got the name of the song wrong, thinking it was called "Innocent When You Scheme".^[57]

In 2005, Waits sued Adam Opel AG, claiming that, after having failed to sign him to sing in their Scandinavian commercials, they had hired a sound-alike singer. In 2007, the suit was settled, and Waits gave the sum to charity.^[58]

Waits has also filed a lawsuit unrelated to his music. He was arrested in 1977 outside Duke's Tropicana Coffee Shop in Los Angeles. Waits and a friend were trying to stop some men from bullying other patrons. The men were plainclothes police, and Waits and his friend were taken into custody and charged with disturbing the peace. The jury found Waits not guilty; he took the police department to court and was awarded $7,500 compensation.^[59]

Discography and filmography[link]

Tours[link]

• 1973: Closing Time touring
• 1974–1975: The Heart of Saturday Night touring
• 1975–1976: Small Change touring
• 1977: Foreign Affairs touring
• 1978–1979: Blue Valentine touring
• 1980–1982: Heartattack and Vine touring
• 1985: Rain Dogs touring
• 1987: Big Time touring
• 1999: Get Behind the Mule Tour
• 2004: Real Gone Tour
• 2006: The Orphans Tour
• 2008: Glitter and Doom Tour^[60]

Further reading[link]

• Humphries, Patrick (2007). The Many Lives of Tom Waits. Omnibus. ISBN 1-84449-585-X. 
• Jacobs, Jay S. (2006). Wild Years The Music and Myth of Tom Waits. ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-716-5. 
• Montandon, Mac (ed.) (2006). Innocent When You Dream: Tom Waits – The Collected Interviews. Orion. ISBN 0-7528-7394-6. 
• Hoskyns, Barney (2009). Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Faber and Faber. 
• Smay, David (2007). Swordfishtrombones. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-2782-0. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Waits

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tom Waits

• Official website
• Tom Waits at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Tom Waits in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Discography at the Tom Waits Library
• Interview with Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork Media, November 27, 2006
• Interview with Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, November 28, 2006
• Tom Waits at NPR Music, contains interviews
• Tom Waits on Twitter
• Interview with Tim Adams, The Guardian, October 23, 2011

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Tagged since May 2012. It may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. Tagged since May 2012. It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Tagged since May 2012. It may contain original research. Tagged since May 2012.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Anton Newcombe & BJM - Live at Coachella
Background information
Also known as	BJM The BJM
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Neo-psychedelia, indie rock, psychedelic rock, shoegazing, folk rock, experimental rock, acid folk
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Bomp! Records TVT Records Tee Pee Records
Associated acts	Black Rebel Motorcycle Club The Out Crowd The Dilettantes The Dandy Warhols Darker My Love
Website	http://www.brianjonestownmassacre.com
Members
Anton Newcombe Matt Hollywood Frankie "Teardrop" Emerson Collin Hegna Ricky Maymi Daniel Allaire Joel Gion Rob Campanella
Past members
see below

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is an American eclectic musical group led by Anton Newcombe, whose music spans multiple genres including psychedelia, electronica, folk music, blues, and experimental music.

The group was founded by Newcombe, Matt Hollywood, Ricky Rene Maymi, Patrick Straczek and Travis Threlkel in the early 1990s in San Francisco.

The name "Brian Jonestown Massacre" is a portmanteau of The Rolling Stones' founder and guitarist Brian Jones and the infamous mass cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.^[1][2]

Releases[link]

1995 & 1996[link]

1995's Methodrone approximates the UK shoegazing sound of a few years prior to its release. Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request, one of three new albums released by the group in 1996, reflects a pastiche of 1960s psychedelia that continues to characterize the BJM sound to the present day. Newcombe defines the term 'psychedelic' as "mind-expanding," and BJM's output is generally referred to as such because of the revivalist nature of the music.^[3][4] Elements of Middle Eastern and Brazilian music are also apparent, along with influences by 1960s artists such as The Beatles, Os Mutantes, The Velvet Underground, Donovan, Love, The Byrds, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. In fact, Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request is an homage to the Rolling Stones' 1967 album, Their Satanic Majesties Request.^[5] The second album they released in 1996, Take It from the Man!, was recorded in the Rolling Stones' mid-1960s style of rock rooted in rhythm and blues.^[6]

Thank God for Mental Illness, their third record released in 1996, displays a country and rhythm and blues oeuvre with voice and acoustic guitar dominating the overall sound. This is a format that Newcombe occasionally resorts to when presenting live material during times of transition in the band. A further country/folk approach was applied to the Bringing It All Back Home - Again, the title itself an homage to Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home.

[edit] And This Is Our Music (2003)

Electronic music crept into 2003's And This Is Our Music, evidencing more contemporary influences as well as name-checking the identically-titled albums This Is Our Music, each by the artists Galaxie 500 and Ornette Coleman. In 2005 the band released the EP We Are the Radio on Newcombe's label The Committee to Keep Music Evil, which featured a close collaboration with indie singer-songwriter Sara Beth Tuceck.

[edit] My Bloody Underground (2008)

My Bloody Underground was released on Cargo Records in 2008, and demos were available since September 2007 from the band's website.^[7] The title has been interpreted^{[by whom?]} to be a name-check to the bands My Bloody Valentine, and The Velvet Underground as well as referencing BJM's endless procession of bandmates and the "scene" they collectively created.^{[original research?]} Newcombe has down-played such interpretations, however.^[8] Music videos of the songs on the album have also been released, including a music video compilation DVD entitled 'Book of Days'.

Other 2008 work[link]

As of 2008, Newcombe has become increasingly interested in pastiches. The percussion featured in the song "Amazing Electronic Talking Cave" from the Just Like Kicking Jesus EP for example, was derived from The Rolling Stones' "Jumping Jack Flash". "Þungur Hnífur" was adapted from Goldfrapp's "Ooh La La". The percussion for "Feel It" was based on that of Anita Ward's song "Ring My Bell". "This Is the One Thing We Did Not Want to Have Happen" draws elements from Joy Division, combining the percussion on "She's Lost Control" with the lyrics to "I Remember Nothing" (both of which are featured on Joy Division's 1979 album Unknown Pleasures), as well as fashioning grating guitar-effects reminiscent of the anarchist-punk band Crass, which, for example, are found on the latter's "Mother-Earth" (from their 1979 album Stations of the Crass). "This Is the First of Your Last Warning" loosely derives its percussion from Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" (or Public Image Ltd.'s "Albatross" from their 1979 album Metal Box).

2009 releases[link]

The Brian Jonestown Massacre recorded both One EP and Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? in Iceland and Berlin in 2009. The One EP was released in November 2009. It features the songs "One" and "This Is the First of Your Last Warning" (which would also appear on Sgt. Pepper), an English version of "This Is The First Of Your Last Warning", and an exclusive track "Bruttermania". Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? was released in February 2010. The album features musicians such as Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir (who recorded vocals on the previous BJM album) and Felix Bondareff from the Russian band Amazing Electronic Talking Cave, as well as other musicians from France, Germany, and Iceland. Will Carruthers also appeared on the album. Soon after the album's release, it was confirmed that Matt Hollywood had returned to the band after an eleven year absence. According to Anton Newcombe, he will feature on their next album and is currently touring with the band. The group was scheduled to play the ATP New York 2010 music festival in Monticello, New York in September 2010, in support of the album, but canceled the appearance.

Newcombe's interest in cults like that of Jim Jones and Charles Manson is well known (and made apparent by the band's name), and songs such as "The Ballad of Jim Jones" (from Thank God for Mental Illness) and "Arkansas Revisited" (from Bringing It All Back Home – Again), which is a rework of Charles Manson's song "Arkansas" (which appeared on the album Lie: The Love & Terror Cult). Similar interests include a fascination with the Freemasons, Aleister Crowley, and Sufi mysticism.

[edit] Aufheben (2012)

Newcombe's latest Brian Jonestown Massacre release (out May 1st 2012) is titled "Aufheben," which he says in an interview with GoingThruVinyl, relates to Hegel's use of the term, the product when a thesis and antithesis interact, and the contradictory nature of nearly destroying something in order to preserve it.^[9]

Documentary[link]

Along with The Dandy Warhols, BJM were the subjects of the 2004 documentary film Dig!. The film captured a love-hate relationship between both bands, highlighting the interaction of BJM frontman Anton Newcombe and Warhols' Courtney Taylor-Taylor. It was recorded over the course of seven years by Ondi Timoner, and won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.^[10] Newcombe distanced himself from the film, stating that its portrayal of him was unfair.

Members[link]

Currently, The Brian Jonestown Massacre comprises Anton Newcombe and numerous long and short-term collaborators:

• Will Carruthers – bass. Member from 2006–present. Formerly of Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized.
• Matt Hollywood – guitar, bass, vocals. A founding member from 1990–1999, then from 2009–present. Also founder of the drone group Rebel Drones.
• Jón Sæmundur Audarson – guitar, artwork. Collaborates with Newcombe on installations, videos, and recording. Currently heads the DEAD clothing store in Reykjavik, Iceland, as well as leading the drone/experimental group Dead Skeletons.
• Henrik Baldvin Bjornsson – guitar. Collaborates with Newcombe with recordings. Also of the Icelandic band Singapore Sling and Dead Skeletons.
• Constantine Karlis – drums. Formerly of the New Zealand rock bands High Dependency Unit and Dimmer.

The BJM has undergone many personnel changes, with Anton Newcombe being the only consistent member (see comprehensive list of Brian Jonestown Massacre members).

Related acts[link]

• The Dandy Warhols
• The Black Angels
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
• Dead Meadow
• The Dilettantes
• The Quarter After
• Miranda Lee Richards
• Spindrift
• Sky Parade
• The Parties
• The Out Crowd
• The Warlocks
• MOTH
• Molecular
• Thee International Molecules
• Astral
• The Lovetones
• Sarah Beth Tuceck
• The Cindys
• The Morning After Girls
• The Three 4 Tens

The band has also influenced many other indie bands noted in the Brian Jonestown Massacre Covers Project.^[11]

Discography[link]

• 1993 Spacegirl & Other Favorites
• 1995 Methodrone
• 1996 Take It from the Man!
• 1996 Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request
• 1996 Thank God for Mental Illness
• 1997 Give It Back!
• 1998 Strung Out in Heaven
• 1999 Bringing It All Back Home – Again (EP)
• 2000 Zero (EP)
• 2001 If I Love You (EP)
• 2001 Bravery, Repetition and Noise
• 2004 Tepid Peppermint Wonderland
• 2003 ...And This Is Our Music
• 2005 We Are the Radio (EP)
• 2008 My Bloody Underground
• 2008 Just Like Kicking Jesus (EP)
• 2009 Smoking Acid (EP)
• 2009 One EP (EP)
• 2010 Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?
• 2012 Aufheben

In popular culture[link]

• The BJM and former friends/rivals The Dandy Warhols were the subject of the acclaimed documentary DiG!.^[12]
• "Open Heart Surgery" appeared on the soundrack to the TV series Rescue Me.
• A number of Jonestown songs were used in the improvisational film by Zak Penn entitled The Grand.
• "Servo" from Give It Back! was used in Spin (2007 film)
• All but one song in the 2007 film Broken,^[13] consisted of music by The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
• "Straight Up and Down" is used as the opening theme song for the show Boardwalk Empire on HBO.
• "Vaccum Boots" appears in episode 1 (season 2) of My Life as Liz
• The track "You Look Great When I'm Fucked Up" appears at the end of episode 5 (series 1) of teen drama Skins.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Brian Jonestown Massacre

• Official Website
• MySpace page
• BJM Archives
• BJM Covers Project
• Straight Up And Down - BJM Book Project

Jonestown

Georgetown

Kaituma

Peoples Temple Agricultural Project ("Jonestown", Guyana)

Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.

A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed "revolutionary suicide" by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions. This includes over 200 murdered children. The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at a nearby Port Kaituma airstrip. The victims included United States Congressman Leo Ryan. Four other Temple members died in Georgetown at Jones's command.

To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass murder, it was the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.^[1]

Origins[link]

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Ukiah

Bakersfield

Fresno

Sacramento

Santa
Rosa

Some of the Peoples Temple's California Locations

The Peoples Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the mid-1950s.^[2] It purported to practice what it called "apostolic socialism".^[3][4] In doing so, the Temple preached to established members that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."^[5][6]

After Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views, the Temple moved to Redwood Valley, California in 1965.^[7][8]

In the early 1970s, the Peoples Temple opened other branches in California, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the mid-1970s, the Temple moved its headquarters to San Francisco.^[9]

After the Temple's move to San Francisco, it became more politically active. After Peoples Temple participation proved instrumental in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.^[10] Unlike other figures considered as cult leaders, Jones enjoyed public support and contact with some of the highest level politicians in the United States. For example, Jones met with Vice President (and later Presidential Candidate) Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter several times.^[11] Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, and Assemblyman Willie Brown, among others, attended a large testimonial dinner in honor of Jones in September 1976.^[12]

Jonestown established[link]

Selection and establishment of Guyanese land[link]

In the fall of 1973, after critical newspaper articles by Lester Kinsolving and the defection of eight Temple members, Jones and Temple member Timothy Stoen prepared an "immediate action" contingency plan for responding to a police or media crackdown.^[13] The plan listed various options, including fleeing to Canada or to a "Caribbean missionary post", such as Barbados or Trinidad.^[13] For its "Caribbean missionary post", the Temple quickly chose Guyana.^[13] The Temple then researched Guyana's economy and extradition treaties with the United States.^[13] In October 1973, the directors of the Peoples Temple passed a resolution to establish an agricultural mission there.^[13]

The Temple chose Guyana, in part, because of its socialist politics, which were also moving further to the left during the selection process.^[13][14] Former Temple member Tim Carter stated that the reasons for choosing Guyana were the Temple's view of creeping fascism, the perceived dominance of multinational corporations on the government, and perceived racism in the U.S. government.^[15] Carter said the Temple concluded that Guyana, a predominantly Indian, English-speaking socialist country, would afford black members of the Temple a peaceful place to live.^[15] Later, Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham stated that what may have attracted Jones was that "he wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that."^[14] Jones also thought it was important that Guyana's leadership consisted of several black leaders and that the country was small and poor enough for Jones to easily obtain influence and official protection.^[13]

In 1974, after Jones and Temple members traveled to an area of Northwest Guyana with Guyanese officials, the Temple and Guyanese officials negotiated a lease of over 3,800 acres (15.4 km²) of jungle land from the Guyanese government.^[16] The site was isolated, with soil of poor fertility, even by Guyanese standards.^[17] The nearest body of water was seven miles (11 km) away by muddy roads.^[17]

Jonestown before mass migration[link]

Houses in Jonestown

500 members began the construction of Jonestown. The Temple encouraged some of its members to move to Jonestown,^[16] which was formally named the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project".^[18] Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny.^[19] In 1976, Guyana finally approved the lease it had negotiated (retroactive to April 1974) with the Temple for the over 3,000 acres (12 km²) of land in Northwest Guyana on which Jonestown was located.^[20]

In 1974, Guyanese government officials granted the Temple permission to import certain items "duty free."^[17] Later payoffs to Guyanese customs officials helped safeguard shipments of firearms and drugs through Guyanese customs.^[21] The relatively large number of immigrants to Guyana overwhelmed the Guyanese government's small but stringent immigration infrastructure in a country where most people wanted to leave.^[22] Jones reached an agreement to guarantee that Guyana would permit Temple members' mass migration. To do so, he stated that Temple members were "skilled and progressive", showed off an envelope he claimed had $500,000 and stated that he would invest most of the church's assets in Guyana.^[22] Guyanese immigration procedures were also compromised to inhibit the departure of Temple defectors and curtail the visas of Temple opponents.^[23]

Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham

Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent communist community, stating: "I believe we’re the purest communists there are."^[24] Marceline Jones described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."^[24] Jones wanted to construct a model community and claimed that Prime Minister Burnham "couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism."^[25] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.^[26]

The Temple's house in Georgetown

The Temple established offices in Georgetown and conducted numerous meetings with Burnham and other Guyanese officials.^[27] In 1976, Temple member Michael Prokes requested that Burnham receive Jones as a foreign dignitary along with other "high ranking U.S. officials."^[28] Jones traveled to Guyana with California Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally to meet with Burnham and Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Willis.^[28] In that meeting, Dymally agreed to pass on the message to the U.S. State Department that socialist Guyana wanted to keep an open door to cooperation with the United States.^[28] Dymally followed up that meeting with a letter to Burnham stating that Jones was "one of the finest human beings" and that Dymally was "tremendously impressed" by his visit to Jonestown.^[28]

Temple members took pains to stress their loyalty to Burnham's Peoples National Congress Party.^[29] One Temple member, Paula Adams, was involved in a romantic relationship with Guyana's Ambassador to the United States, Laurence "Bonny" Mann. Jones bragged about other Temple members he referred to as "public relations women" giving all for the cause in Jonestown.^[30][31] Viola Burnham, the Guyanese Prime Minister's wife, was also a strong advocate of the Temple.^[14]

Later, Burnham stated that Guyana allowed the Temple to operate in the manner it did on the references of Mondale, Rosalynn Carter, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.^[32] Burnham also said that, when Deputy Minister Ptolemy Reid traveled to Washington in September 1977 to sign the Panama Canal Treaties, Mondale asked him "How's Jim?", which indicated to Reid that Mondale had a personal interest in Jones' well being.^[32]

Investigation and mass migration[link]

In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to Jonestown to escape building pressure from San Francisco media investigations.^[33] Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read Jones an article to be published by Marshall Kilduff detailing allegations by former Temple members.^[33][34] Jonestown's population was just under 1,000 at its peak in 1978.

Jonestown life after mass migration[link]

Many members of the Peoples Temple believed that Guyana would be, as Jones promised, a paradise, or a utopia.^[35] After the mass migration, Jonestown became overcrowded.^[36]

After Jones arrived, Jonestown life significantly changed.^[36] Entertaining movies from Georgetown that the pioneers had watched were eliminated in favor of propaganda shorts on Soviet life provided by the Soviet embassy and documentaries on problems such as elderly life in the U.S. and returning Vietnam veterans' adjustment to civilian life.^[36] Bureaucratic requirements after Jones' arrival sapped labor resources for other needs.^[36] Buildings fell into disrepair and weeds encroached on fields.^[36] School study and night time lectures for adults turned to Jones' discussions about revolution and enemies, with lessons focusing on Soviet alliances, Jones' crises and the purported "mercenaries" of Timothy Stoen.^[36]

For the first several months, Temple members worked six days a week, from approximately 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with an hour for lunch.^[37] In mid-1978, after Jim Jones' health deteriorated and Marciline Jones began managing more of Jonestown's operations, the work week was reduced to eight hours a day for five days a week.^[15]

After the day's work ended, Temple members would attend several hours of activities in a pavilion structure, including classes in socialism.^[38] Jones described this study as like that of the North Korean system of eight hours of daily work followed by eight hours of study.^[39][40] This also comported with the Temple's practice of gradually subjecting its followers to sophisticated mind control and behavior-modification techniques borrowed from post-revolutionary People's Republic of China and North Korea.^[41] Jones would often read news and commentary, including some from Radio Moscow and Radio Havana,^[42] though concerning the Sino-Soviet split he often criticized Chinese foreign policy initiatives he (and often the Soviet Government) viewed as anti-Soviet.^[43]

"Discussion" around the topics raised often took the form of Jones interrogating individual followers about the implications and subtexts of a given item, or delivering lengthy and often confused monologues on how his people should 'read' the events. In addition to Soviet documentaries, conspiracy theory movies such as Executive Action, written by Temple attorneys Mark Lane and Donald Freed, and The Parallax View (incorrectly attributed by Jones to Lane and Freed) were screened and minutely dissected by Jones as primers on the 'true nature' of the Temple's capitalist enemies.^[42]

Jones' recorded readings of the news were part of the constant broadcasts over Jonestown's tower speakers, such that all members could hear them throughout the day and night.^[44] Jones' news readings usually portrayed the United States as a "capitalist" and "imperialist" villain, while casting "socialist" leaders, such as North Korean leader Kim Il-sung ("great leader of the revolution, is in the vanguard of the Korean working class"^[45]), Robert Mugabe ("long known for his communist inspiration to the people of Zimbabwe… one of the revolutionary heroes"^[46]) and Joseph Stalin (disturbed by people criticizing Stalin^[47]), in a positive light.

Jonestown's primary means of communication with the outside world was a shortwave radio.^[48] All voice communications with San Francisco and Georgetown were transmitted using this radio, from mundane supply orders to confidential Temple business.^[48] The FCC cited the Temple for technical violations and for using amateur frequencies for commercial purposes.^[48] Because shortwave radio was Jonestown's only effective means of non-postal communication, the Temple felt that the FCC's threats to revoke its operators' licenses threatened Jonestown's existence.^[49]

Jonestown, being on poor soil, was not self-sufficient and had to import large quantities of commodities such as wheat.^[50] Temple members lived in small communal houses, some with walls woven from Troolie palm, and ate meals which reportedly consisted of nothing more on some days than rice, beans, greens and sometimes meat sauce and eggs (more on others).^[50][51] Despite theoretically having access to millions of dollars in Temple funds, Jones also lived in a tiny communal house (pictured below), though fewer people lived there than in other communal houses.^[51] His house reportedly held a small refrigerator, containing, at times, eggs, meat, fruit, salads and soft drinks.^[51] Medical problems, such as severe diarrhea and high fevers, struck half the community in February 1978.

Although Jonestown contained no dedicated prison and no form of capital punishment, various forms of punishment were used against members considered to be serious disciplinary problems. Methods included imprisonment in a 6 x 4 x 3-foot (1.8 x 1.2 x 0.9m) plywood box and forcing children to spend a night at the bottom of a well, sometimes upside-down.^[2] For some members who attempted to escape, drugs such as Thorazine, sodium pentathol, chloral hydrate, Demerol and Valium were administered in an "extended care unit."^[52] Armed guards patrolled the area day and night to enforce Jonestown's rules. Some local Guyanese, including a police official, related stories about harsh beatings and a "torture hole", the well into which the children were placed when they were perceived to have misbehaved.^[53][54]

Children generally surrendered to communal care, addressed Jones as "Dad" and some at times were only allowed to see their real parents briefly at night. Jones was called "Father" or "Dad" by the adults as well.^[55] The community had a nursery at which 33 infants were born.^[56]

Up to $65,000 in monthly welfare payments from government organizations in the United States to Jonestown residents were signed over to the Temple.^[57] In 1978, officials from the United States Embassy in Guyana interviewed Social Security recipients on multiple occasions to make sure they were not being held against their will.^[58] None of the 75 people interviewed by the Embassy stated that they were being held against their will, were forced to sign over welfare checks, or wanted to leave Jonestown.^[58][59]

The Temple's wealth was estimated in late 1978 to be approximately $26 million.^[60]

Events in Jonestown prior to Ryan visit[link]

White Nights[link]

Jones made frequent addresses to Temple members regarding Jonestown's safety, including statements that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were conspiring with "capitalist pigs" to destroy Jonestown and harm its members.^[46][61][62] After work, when purported emergencies arose, the Temple sometimes conducted what Jones referred to as "White Nights".^[63] During such events, Jones would sometimes give the Jonestown members four choices: (1) attempt to flee to the Soviet Union; (2) commit "revolutionary suicide"; (3) stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers or (4) flee into the jungle.^[64]

On at least two occasions during White Nights, after a "revolutionary suicide" vote was reached, a simulated mass suicide was rehearsed. Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton described the event in an affidavit:

"Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands."^[65]

The Temple had received monthly half-pound shipments of cyanide since 1976 after Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy the chemical, purportedly to clean gold.^[66]

Stoen custody dispute[link]

In September 1977, former Temple members Timothy and Grace Stoen battled in a Georgetown court to produce an order for the Temple to show cause why a final order should not be issued returning their son, John (five years old at the time), to his mother Grace.^[67] A few days later, a second order was issued for the arrest of John by authorities.^[68]

The fear of being held in contempt of the orders caused Jones to set up a false sniper attack upon himself and begin his first series of White Nights, called the "Six Day Siege", where Jones spoke to Temple members about attacks from outsiders and had them surround Jonestown with guns and machetes.^[69] The fiery rallies took an almost surreal tone as Angela Davis and Huey Newton communicated via radio-telephone to the Jonestown crowd, urging them to hold strong against the "conspiracy."^[70] Jones made radio broadcasts stating "we will die unless we are granted freedom from harassment and asylum."^[71] Guyana Deputy Minister Ptolemy Reid finally assured Jones' wife Marceline that the Guyana Defence Force would not invade Jonestown.^[72]

Exploring another potential exodus[link]

After the Six Day Siege, Jones no longer believed the Guyanese could be trusted.^[73] Jones directed Temple members to write to over a dozen foreign governments inquiring about immigration policies relevant to another exodus by the Temple.^[73] He also wrote to the U.S. State Department inquiring about North Korea and Albania, then enduring the Sino-Albanian split.^[73]

In Georgetown, the Peoples Temple conducted frequent meetings with the embassies of the Soviet Union, North Korea, Yugoslavia and Cuba.^[74] Their negotiations with the Soviet Union included extensive discussions of possible resettlement there and the Temple produced memoranda discussing potential places within the Soviet Union in which they might settle.^[74] Sharon Amos, Michael Prokes and other Temple members took active roles in the "Guyana-Korea Friendship Society", which sponsored two seminars on revolutionary concepts of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.^[75]

On October 2, 1978, Feodor Timofeyev from the Soviet Union embassy in Guyana visited Jonestown for two days and gave a speech.^[76] Jones stated before the speech that "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland," which was followed by extended cheers and applause from the Jonestown crowd.^[76] Timofeyev opened the speech stating that the USSR would like to send "our deepest and the most sincere greetings to the people of this first socialist and communist community of the United States of America, in Guyana and in the world," followed by cheers and applause from the crowd.^[76] Timofeyev also stated "I’d like to wish you, dear comrades, all the successes to your great, to your very big work you’re doing here."^[76]

By October 1978, Temple members met almost weekly with Timofeyev discussing a potential exodus to the Soviet Union.^[74]

Concerned relatives[link]

Meanwhile, in late 1977 and early 1978, Tim and Grace Stoen participated in meetings with other relatives of Jonestown residents at the home of Jeannie Mills, and they collectively called themselves the "Concerned Relatives."^[77] Tim Stoen engaged in letter writing campaigns to the Secretary of State and the government of Guyana, and traveled to Washington to attempt to begin an investigation.^[78] In January 1978, Stoen wrote a "white paper" to Congress detailing the problems and requesting that Representatives write to Forbes Burnham; 91 Congressmen wrote such letters, including Congressman Leo Ryan.^[79][80]

Feeling pressure from the United States, on February 17, Jones submitted to an interview with San Francisco Examiner journalist Tim Reiterman.^[81] Reiterman wrote a story the next day in the San Francisco Examiner about Stoen's attempts to gain custody of his son that prompted the immediate threat of a lawsuit by the Temple.^[82] The repercussions were devastating for the Temple's reputation, and made most former supporters even more suspicious of the Temple's claims that it was being subjected to a "rightist vendetta."^[82]

One day later, on Sunday February 19, 1978, Harvey Milk wrote a letter of support for the Peoples Temple to President Jimmy Carter.^[83] Milk wrote that Jones was known "as a man of the highest character".^[83] Regarding defecting Temple members pressing for an investigation of the Peoples Temple, Milk wrote "they are attempting to damage Rev. Jones' reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies".^[83]

On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones" to the Peoples Temple, members of the press and members of Congress.^[84] In June 1978, Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.^[65]

Tim Stoen represented three members of the Concerned Relatives in lawsuits filed in May and June 1978 against Jim Jones and other Temple members seeking in excess of $56 million in damages.^[85] The Temple, represented by Charles R. Garry, filed a suit against Tim Stoen on July 10, 1978 seeking $150 million in damages.^[86]

Digging in[link]

During the summer of 1978, Jones hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple.^[87] Jones told Lane he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive Black Panther who was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.^[87] In September 1978, Lane spoke to the residents of Jonestown, providing support for Jones' theories and drawing parallels between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jim Jones.^[87] Lane then held press conferences stating that "none of the charges" against the Temple "are accurate or true" and that there was a "massive conspiracy" against the Temple by "intelligence organizations," naming the CIA, FBI, FCC and even the U.S. Post Office.^[87] Though Lane represented himself as disinterested, Jones was actually paying him $6,000 per month to generate such theories.^[88]

Declining health[link]

Jones' health significantly declined in Jonestown, and a doctor who examined Jones in 1978 told him that he might have a lung infection.^[89] Jones was said to be abusing injectable Valium, Quaaludes, stimulants, and barbiturates.^[90] His once sharp voice later sounded slurred, words ran together and Jones would not finish sentences even when reading.^[90]

Journalist Tim Reiterman was surprised by the severe deterioration of Jones' health when Reiterman first saw Jones in Jonestown on November 17, 1978.^[56] After covering Jones for 18 months for the San Francisco Examiner, Reiterman thought it was "shocking to see his glazed eyes and festering paranoia face to face, to realize that nearly a thousand lives, ours included, were in his hands."^[56]

Ryan delegation's initial investigation in Georgetown[link]

Congressman Leo Ryan

Congressman Leo Ryan, who represented a district in Northern California, announced that he would visit Jonestown.^[91] Ryan was friends with the father of Bob Houston, whose mutilated body was found near train tracks on October 5, 1976, three days after a taped telephone conversation with Houston's ex-wife in which leaving the Temple was discussed.^[92] Over the following months Ryan's interest was further aroused by the complaints of the Concerned Relatives represented by Timothy Stoen and the allegations following the defection of Deborah Layton.^[92]

On November 14, 1978, Ryan flew to Georgetown, Guyana (150 miles (240 km) from Jonestown), along with a team of 18 people consisting of government officials, media representatives and some members of the Concerned Relatives.^[93] The group included Congressman Ryan; Ryan's legal adviser, Jackie Speier (now a Congresswoman); Neville Annibourne, representing Guyana's Ministry of Information; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy to Guyana; Tim Reiterman, San Francisco Examiner reporter; Don Harris, NBC reporter; Greg Robinson, San Francisco Examiner photographer; Steve Sung, NBC audio technician; Bob Flick, NBC producer; Charles Krause, Washington Post reporter; Ron Javers, San Francisco Chronicle reporter; Bob Brown, NBC video operator; and Concerned Relatives representatives, including Tim and Grace Stoen, Steve and Anthony Katsaris, Beverly Oliver, Jim Cobb, Sherwin Harris, and Carolyn Houston Boyd.^[94]

The Peoples Temple's lawyers, Mark Lane and Charles Garry, initially refused to allow Ryan's party access to Jonestown.^[95]

Ryan delegation visits Jonestown[link]

Jonestown Aerial

By late morning on Friday, November 17, Lane and Garry informed Jones that Ryan would likely leave for Jonestown at 2:30 pm, regardless of Jones' schedule or willingness.^[96] Ryan's party did so at roughly that time, accompanied by Lane and Garry, and came to Port Kaituma airstrip, 6 miles (10 km) from Jonestown, some hours later.^[97] Because of aircraft seating limitations, only four of the Concerned Relatives were allowed to accompany the Ryan delegation on its flight into Jonestown.^[98] Only Ryan and three others were initially accepted into Jonestown, but the rest of Ryan's group was allowed in after sunset.^[99] It was later reported (and verified by audiotapes recovered by investigators) that Jones had run rehearsals on how to convince Ryan's delegation that everyone was happy and in good spirits.^[100]

That night, the Ryan delegation attended a reception in the pavilion.^[101] While the party received a friendly reception, Jones said he felt like a dying man and ranted about government conspiracies and martyrdom as he decried attacks by the press and his enemies.^[56] Two Peoples Temple members, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, made the first move for defection that night. In the pavilion, Gosney passed a note to Don Harris (mistaking him for Ryan), reading "Dear Congressman, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby. Please help us get out of Jonestown."^[102]

That night Ryan, Speier, Dwyer, and Annibourne stayed in Jonestown.^[103] Other members of the Ryan delegation, including the press corps and members of Concerned Relatives, were told that they had to find other accommodations, and so they went to Port Kaituma and stayed at a small café.^[103]

In the early morning of November 18, eleven Temple members sensed danger enough to walk out of the colony toward train tracks to take a train to Matthew's Ridge, which is located in the opposite direction from the airstrip at Port Kaituma.^[104][105] Those defectors included members of the Evans family and the Wilson family (the family of Jonestown's head of security, Joe Wilson).^{[104][106][107][108]} When reporters and Concerned Relatives arrived in Jonestown later that day, Jim Jones' wife Marceline gave them a tour of the settlement.^[109]

Entrance to Jonestown

That afternoon, two families stepped forward and asked to be escorted out of Jonestown by the Ryan delegation.^[110] They were the Parks and the Bogue families, along with Christopher O'Neal and Harold Cordell, who were partners of women in the two families.^{[104][110][111]} When Jones' adopted son Johnny attempted to talk Jerry Parks out of leaving, Parks told him "No way, it's nothing but a communist prison camp."^[112]

Jones gave the two families, along with Gosney and Bagby, permission to leave.^[113] Under the Pavilion, Don Harris of NBC handed Jones the note written by Vernon Gosney while other reporters huddled around Jones.^[114] Jones told those reporters that, like others who left the community, the defectors would "lie" and destroy Jonestown.^[114]

After a sudden violent rainstorm started, some emotional scenes developed between family members.^[115] Al Simon, an American Indian member of the Peoples Temple, attempted to take two of his children to Ryan to process the requisite paperwork for transfer back to the United States.^[115] Al's wife, Bonnie, summoned on the loudspeakers by Temple staff, loudly denounced her husband.^[115] Al pleaded in vain with Bonnie to return to the U.S., but Bonnie rejected his suggestions.^[115]

The Port Kaituma airstrip shootings[link]

While most of the Ryan delegation began to depart on a large dump truck to the Port Kaituma airstrip, Congressman Ryan and Dwyer stayed behind in Jonestown to process any additional defectors.^[117]

Shortly before the dump truck departed for the airstrip, Temple loyalist Larry Layton, the brother of Deborah Layton, demanded to join the group.^[117] Several defectors voiced their suspicions about his motives.^[117]

Shortly after the dump truck initially departed, Temple member Don Sly (nicknamed "Ujara") grabbed Ryan while wielding a knife.^[118] While Congressman Ryan was unhurt after others wrestled Sly to the ground, Dwyer strongly suggested that Ryan leave Jonestown while Dwyer filed a criminal complaint against Sly.^[119] Ryan did so, promising to return later to address the dispute.^[120]

The truck departing to the airstrip had stopped after the passengers heard of the attack on Ryan.^[121] Ryan then boarded the truck and reached the airstrip later that afternoon.^[121]

The entourage had originally scheduled a 19-seat Twin Otter to fly them back to Georgetown. Because of the defectors departing Jonestown, the group grew in number and now an additional aircraft was required. Accordingly, the U. S. Embassy arranged for a second plane, a six-passenger Cessna.^[120][122]

When the entourage reached the Port Kaituma airstrip between 4:30 p.m. and 4:45 p.m., the planes were supposed to be there, but they had not appeared yet. The group had to wait, until the aircraft landed at approximately 5:10 p.m.^[120] Then the boarding process began.

Larry Layton was a passenger on the Cessna, the first aircraft to set up for takeoff.^[123] After the Cessna had taxied to the far end of the airstrip, Layton produced a gun and started shooting at the passengers.^[124] He wounded Monica Bagby and Vernon Gosney, and tried to kill Dale Parks, who disarmed him.^[124]

At this time, some passengers had boarded the larger Twin Otter.^[125] A tractor with a trailer attached driven by members of the Temple's Red Brigade security squad approached the Otter.^[125] When the tractor neared within approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) of the Otter, roughly concurrent with the shootings on the Cessna, the Red Brigade opened fire on the aircraft while at least two Red Brigade members circled the plane on foot.^[120] There were perhaps nine shooters whose identities are not all certainly known, but most sources agree that Joe Wilson, Jones' head of security, Thomas Kice Sr., and Ronnie Dennis were among them.^[126]

A few seconds of the shooting were captured on ENG videotape by NBC cameraman Bob Brown.^[127] Congressman Ryan, cameraman Bob Brown, photographer Greg Robinson, NBC reporter Don Harris and Temple defector Patricia Parks were killed in the few minutes of shooting.^[127] Jackie Speier, Steve Sung, Richard Dwyer, Tim Reiterman and Anthony Katsaris were among the nine injured in and around the Twin Otter.^[127] After the shootings, the Cessna's pilot, along with the pilot and copilot of the Otter, fled in the Cessna to Georgetown, leaving behind the gunfire-damaged Otter and the injured Ryan delegation members.^[124]

Deaths in Jonestown[link]

Before leaving Jonestown for the airstrip, Congressman Ryan had told Temple attorney Charles Garry that he would issue a report that would describe Jonestown "in basically good terms."^[128] Ryan stated that none of the sixty relatives Ryan had targeted for interviews wanted to leave, the 14 defectors constituted a very small portion of Jonestown's residents, that any sense of imprisonment the defectors had was likely because of peer pressure and a lack of physical transportation, and even if 200 of the 900+ wanted to leave "I'd still say you have a beautiful place here."^[128] Similarly, Washington Post reporter Charles Krause stated that, on the way back to the airstrip, he was unconvinced that Jonestown was as bad as defectors had claimed because there were no signs of malnutrition or physical abuse, while many members appeared to enjoy Jonestown and only a small number of the over 900 residents elected to leave.^[129]

Despite Garry's report, Jones told him "I have failed."^[130] Garry reiterated that Ryan would be making a positive report, but Jones maintained that "All is lost."^[130]

A 44-minute cassette tape (the "death tape"),^[131] recorded at least part of a meeting Jones called under the pavilion in the early evening. Before the meeting, aides prepared a metal vat with Flavor Aid, poisoned with Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide,^[132] and Phenergan.^[133]

When the assembly gathered, referring to the Ryan delegation's air travel back to Georgetown, Jones told the gathering "one of the people on that plane is gonna shoot the pilot, I know that. I didn't plan it but I know it's going to happen. They're gonna shoot that pilot and down comes the plane into the jungle and we had better not have any of our children left when it's over, because they'll parachute in here on us."^[131] Parroting Jones' prior statements that hostile forces would convert captured children to Fascism, one temple member states: "The ones that they take captured, they're gonna just let them grow up and be dummies."^[131]

On the death tape, Jones urged Temple members to commit "revolutionary suicide".^[131] Such "revolutionary suicide" had been planned by the Temple before and, according to Jonestown defectors, its theory was "you can go down in history, saying you chose your own way to go, and it is your commitment to refuse capitalism and in support of socialism."^[134]

Temple member Christine Miller argued that the Temple should alternatively attempt an airlift to Russia.^[131] Jim McElvane, a former therapist who had arrived in Jonestown only two days earlier, assisted Jones by arguing against Miller's resistance to suicide, stating "Let's make it a beautiful day" (followed by applause from Temple members) and later citing possible reincarnation.^[131] After several exchanges in which Jones argued that a Soviet exodus would not be possible, along with reactions by other temple members hostile to Miller, Miller backed down.^[131] However, Miller may have ceased dissenting when Jones confirmed at one point that "the Congressman has been murdered" after members of his "Red Brigade" squad returned from the airstrip after shooting Ryan.^{[citation needed]}

After the airstrip shooters arrived back in Jonestown, Tim Carter, a Vietnam war veteran, recalled the shooters having the "thousand-yard stare" of weary soldiers.^[135]

After Jones confirmed that "the Congressman's dead" no dissent occurs on the death tape.^[131] Directly after this, referring to his Red Brigade security squad that shot Ryan, Jones stated, "But the Red Brigade's the only one that made any sense anyway" and, "Red Brigade showed them justice."^[131] In addition to Jim McElvane, several other temple members gave speeches praising Jones and his decision for the community to commit suicide, even after Jones stopped appreciating this praise and begged for the process to go faster.^[131]

According to escaped Temple member Odell Rhodes, first to take the poison were Ruletta Paul and her one-year-old infant.^[136] A syringe with its needle removed was used to squirt poison into the infant's mouth and then Paul squirted another syringe into her own mouth.^[136] Stanley Clayton also saw mothers with their babies first approach the table containing the poison.^[137] Clayton said that Jones approached people to encourage them to drink the poison and that, after adults saw the poison begin to take effect, "they showed a reluctance to die."^[137]

The poison caused death within around five minutes.^[138] After consuming the poison, according to Rhodes, people were then escorted away down a wooden walkway leading outside the Pavilion.^[136] It is not clear if some initially thought the exercise was another "White Night" rehearsal. Rhodes reported being in close contact with dying children.^[136]

In response to reactions of seeing the poison take effect on others, Jones counseled, "Die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity; don't lay down with tears and agony." He also said, "I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you – if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight."^[131] Survivor Odell Rhodes stated that while the poison was squirted in some children's mouths, there was no panic or emotional outburst and people looked like they were "in a trance".^[139] This statement was a contradiction of the crying and screaming children heard throughout the majority of the testimonial "death tape."^[131]

Jones was found dead lying next to his chair between two other bodies, his head cushioned by a pillow.^[140] His death was caused by a gunshot wound to his left temple that Guyanese coroner Cyrill Mootoo stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound.^[141]

The events at Jonestown constituted the greatest single losses of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the incidents of September 11, 2001.^[142]

Survivors/eyewitnesses[link]

Three high ranking Temple member survivors claim they were given an assignment and thereby escaped death. Brothers Tim and Mike Carter, 30 years old and 20 years old respectively, and Mike Prokes, 31, were given luggage containing $550,000 in US currency, $130,000 in Guyanese currency and an envelope, which they were told to deliver to Guyana’s Soviet Embassy, in Georgetown.^[143] The envelope contained two passports and three instructional letters, the first of which was to Feodor Timofeyev of the Embassy of the Soviet Union in Guyana, stating:

Dear Comrade Timofeyev,
The following is a letter of instructions regarding all of our assets that we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Enclosed in this letter are letters which instruct the banks to send the cashiers checks to you. I am doing this on behalf of Peoples Temple because we, as communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit.^[143][144]

The letters included listed accounts with balances totaling in excess of $7.3 million to be transferred to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.^{[144][145][146]} The Carters and Prokes soon ditched most of the money and were apprehended heading for the Temple boat (Cudjo) at Kaituma.^[143] It is unknown how they were supposed to reach Georgetown, 150 miles (240 km) away, since the boat had been sent away by Temple leadership earlier that day.^[143]

Just before the start of the final meeting in the pavilion, lawyers Charles Garry and Mark Lane were told that the people were angry at them.^[147] The lawyers were escorted to a house used to accommodate visitors. According to the lawyers, they talked their way past armed guards and made it to the jungle, before eventually arriving in Port Kaituma.^[147] While in the jungle near the settlement, they heard gunshots.^[147] This observation concurs with the testimony of Clayton, who heard the same sounds as he was sneaking back into Jonestown to retrieve his passport.

Five more people who were intended to be poisoned managed to survive.^[143] Grover Davis, 79, who was hearing impaired, missed the announcement to assemble on the loudspeaker, lay down in a ditch and pretended to be dead.^[19][148] Hyacinth Thrash, 76, realized what was happening and crawled under her bed, only to walk out after the suicides were completed.^[19][148] Odell Rhodes, 36, a Jonestown teacher and craftsman, volunteered to fetch a stethoscope and hid under a building.^[136] Stanley Clayton, 25, a kitchenworker and cousin of Huey P. Newton, tricked security guards and ran into the jungle.^[137] The fifth survivor, a 5 year old boy known only as "Michael", escaped by hiding in the surrounding forest. Upon his rescue (by Guyanese government officials) he was returned to the United States, adopted, and is believed to have been raised in or around Portland, Maine.^[19][143]

Medical examinations[link]

The only medical doctor to initially examine the scene at Jonestown was Guyanese Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Leslie Mootoo. Mootoo visually examined over 200 bodies and later told a Guyanese coroner's jury that he saw needle marks on at least 70.^[149] However, no determination was made as to whether those injections initiated the introduction of poison or whether they were so-called "relief" injections to quicken death and reduce suffering from convulsions from those who had previously taken poison orally. Mootoo and American pathologist Dr. Lynn Crook determined that cyanide was present in some of the bodies, while analysis of the contents of the vat revealed several tranquilizers as well as potassium cyanide and potassium chloride.^[149]

Plastic cups, Flavor Aid packets and syringes, some with needles and some without, littered the area where the bodies were found.^[150] Mootoo concluded that the gunshot wound to Annie Moore could not have been self-inflicted, though Moore had also ingested a lethal dose of cyanide.^[150]

Guyanese authorities waived their requirement for autopsies in the case of unnatural death.^[149] Doctors in the United States performed autopsies on only seven bodies, including those of Jim Jones, Dr. Lawrence Schact, Annie Moore and Carolyn Layton.^[149] Annie Moore and Carolyn Layton were selected among those autopsied, in part, because of the urging of the Moore family, including the two victims' sister, Rebecca Moore, who was not a Temple member herself.^[149]

Notes from non-surviving residents[link]

Found near Marceline Jones' body was a typewritten note, dated November 18, 1978, signed by Marceline Jones and witnessed by Annie Moore and Maria Katsaris, stating:

I, Marceline Jones, leave all bank assets in my name to the Communist Party of the USSR. The above bank accounts are located in the Bank of Nova Scotia, Nassau, Bahamas. Please be sure that these assets do get to the USSR. I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell. For anyone who finds this letter, please honor this request as it is most important to myself [sic] and my husbank [sic] James W. Jones.^[151]

Annie Moore left a note, which in part stated: "I am at a point right now so embittered against the world that I don't know why I am writing this. Someone who finds it will believe I am crazy or believe in the barbed wire that does NOT exist in Jonestown."^[152] The last line ("We died because you would not let us live in peace.") is written in different color ink. No other specific reference is made to the events of the day. Moore also wrote, "JONESTOWN—the most peaceful, loving community that ever existed."^[152] In addition she stated,"JIM JONES—the one who made this paradise possible—much to the contrary of the lies stated about Jim Jones being a power-hungry sadistic, mean person who thought he was God—of all things."^[152] And "His hatred of racism, sexism, elitism, and mainly classism, is what prompted him to make a new world for the people—a paradise in the jungle. The children loved it. So did everyone else."^[152]

Another note, found 25 years later, was buried among reams of unrelated paperwork. The document, titled "Last Words", unsigned, was attributed most likely to Richard Tropp.^[153] The note contained references to the events of the last day:

We did not want it this way. All was going well as Ryan completed [his] first day here. Then a man tried to attack him, unsuccessfully at some time, several set out into jungle wanting to overtake Ryan, aide, and others who left with him. They did, and several killed. When we heard this, we had no choice. We would be taken. We have to go as one, we want to live as Peoples Temple, or end it. We have chosen. It is finished.^[153]

Maria Katsaris

A note likely written by Tish Leroy stated:

Dad I see no way out — I agree with your decision — I fear only that without you the world may not make it to communism — Tish For my part — I am more than tired of this wretched, merciless planet & the hell it holds for the masses of so many beautiful people — thank you for the only life I've known.^[154]

Found near Maria Katsaris' body was a handwritten note signed by Katsaris, dated November 18, 1978, witnessed by Jim McElvane and Marilee Bogue, stating, "I Maria Katsaris leave all of the money in the Banco Union de Venezuela in Caracas to the Communist Party Soviet Union."^[155]

Found near Carolyn Layton's body was a handwritten note signed by Carolyn Layton, witnessed by Maria Katsaris and Annie Moore, dated November 18, 1978, stating, "This is my last will and testament. I hereby leave all assets in any bank account to which I am a signatory to the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R."^[156]

Deaths in Georgetown[link]

In the early evening of November 18, at the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown, Temple member Sharon Amos received a radio communication from Jonestown instructing the members at the headquarters to take revenge on the Temple's enemies and then commit revolutionary suicide.^[157] Later, after police arrived at the Temple headquarters, Sharon Amos escorted her children, Liane (21), Christa (11) and Martin (10), into a bathroom.^[158] Wielding a kitchen knife, Sharon first killed Christa and then Martin.^[158] Then Liane assisted Sharon in killing herself with the knife, after which Liane killed herself with the knife.^[158]

Aftermath[link]

At the airstrip, journalist Tim Reiterman photographed the aftermath of the violence.^[159] Dwyer assumed leadership at the scene and, at his recommendation, Layton was arrested by Guyanese state police.^[160] Dwyer was grazed by one bullet in his buttock during the airstrip shootings.^[160] It took several hours before the ten wounded and others in their party gathered themselves together.^[160] Most of them spent the night in a café.^[160] The more seriously wounded slept in a small tent on the airfield.^[160] A Guyanese government plane arrived the following morning to evacuate the wounded.^[159] Five teenaged members of the Parks and Bogue families, with one boyfriend, followed the instructions of defector Gerald Parks to hide in the adjacent jungle until help arrived and their safety was assured.^[161] Thereafter those members were lost for three days in the jungle and nearly died. Guyanese soldiers eventually found them.

Military personnel evacuating bodies from Jonestown

After escaping Jonestown, Odell Rhodes arrived in Port Kaituma on the night of November 18, 1978.^[136] That night Stanley Clayton stayed with a local Guyanese family and travelled to Port Kaituma the next morning.^[137] The Carter brothers and Michael Prokes were put into protective custody in Port Kaituma.^[143] They were later released in Georgetown. Rhodes, Clayton and the two lawyers (Garry and Lane) were also brought to Georgetown. Michael Prokes committed suicide on March 14, 1979, four months after the Jonestown incident.^[162]

Larry Layton, who had fired a gun at several people aboard the Cessna, was originally found not guilty of attempted murder in a Guyanese court, employing the defense that he was "brainwashed".^[163] Layton could not be tried in the United States for the attempted murders of Vern Gosney, Monica Bagby, the Cessna pilot and Dale Parks on Guyanese soil and was, instead, tried under a federal statute against assassinating members of Congress and internationally protected people (Ryan and Dwyer).^[163] He was convicted of conspiracy and of aiding and abetting the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan and of the attempted murder of Richard Dwyer.^[163] Paroled in 2002, he is the only person ever to have been held criminally responsible for the events at Jonestown.^[164]

The event was one of the stories most heavily covered by the media^{[citation needed]} and photographs pertaining to it adorned newspaper and magazine covers for months after its occurrence, including being labeled "cult of death" by Time and Newsweek magazines. In February 1979, 98% of Americans polled said that they had heard of the tragedy.^[165] George Gallup stated that "few events, in fact, in the entire history of the Gallup Poll have been known to such a high percentage of the U.S. public."^[165]

After the deaths, both the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the State Department itself criticized the State Department's handling of the Temple.^[166] Political opposition seized the opportunity to embarrass Guyanese Prime Minister Burnham by establishing an inquest which concluded that Burnham was responsible for the deaths at Jonestown.^[166]

The sheer scale of the event, as well as Jones' socialism, purported inconsistencies in the reported number of deaths, allegedly poor explanation of events related to deaths at Jonestown, and existence of classified documents^[167] led some to suggest CIA involvement,^{[168][169][170][171]} though the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence investigated the Jonestown mass suicide and announced that there was no evidence of CIA involvement at Jonestown.

Former site[link]

Now deserted, the compound at Jonestown was first tended by the Guyanese government following the deaths.^[172] The government then allowed its re-occupation by Hmong refugees from Laos for a few years in the early 1980s.^[172] The buildings and grounds were looted by local Guyanese people, but were not taken over because of their association with the mass killing. The buildings were mostly destroyed by a fire in the mid-1980s, after which the ruins were left to decay and be reclaimed by the jungle.

During a visit in 1998 to film a segment for the ABC news show 20/20, Jim Jones, Jr. discovered the rusting remains of an oil drum near the former entrance to the Pavilion.^[173] Jones recognized the drum, originally adapted for use during meal times, as the drum used for drink mixtures used during the "white night" exercises, and which he believed was used to hold the poison and Flavor Aid liquid used on November 18, 1978.^[173]

In 2003, with the help of Gerry Gouveia, a pilot involved with the Jonestown Massacre cleanup, a television crew filming a special for the 25th anniversary of the event returned to the original site of Jonestown with the intent to uncover any remaining artifacts.^[174] Although covered with dense vegetation, after searching for several hours the team uncovered a standing cassava mill (possibly the largest remaining structure), the remains of a tractor (speculated as the same tractor used by the airstrip shooters), a generator, a filing cabinet, an overturned truck near the site of Jim Jones' house (claimed to be his favorite vehicle by Gouveia), a fuel pump, and other smaller miscellaneous items. The former pilot also led the team to the site where the pavilion once was, and they found the remains of a steel drum, an organ, and a bed of daisies growing where the bodies had once lain.^[174][175]

In 2011, a local man asked the government to make the site a tourist attraction ^[176].

See also[link]

	Guyana portal
	United States portal

• Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, a 2006 documentary film
• Jonestown: Paradise Lost, a 2007 Discovery Channel Documentary
• United States Congress members killed or wounded in office

References[link]