Art Peterson - Twinkie Insanity (2:50)
Lenny Anderson - The Ballad Of Dan White (2:55)
On November 27, 1978 San Francisco mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California) were gunned down by Dan White, a severely depressed ex-City Supervisor who had recently given up his normal health food regimen for a steady diet of "junk food" laden with sugar and salt. At his trial, White's attorneys argued that his consumption of junk food was a contributing symptom of his diminished capacity for reason, not, as most people believe a cause of the problem.
In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle's Carol Pogash wrote a fine article (The Myth Of The Twinkie Defense) summarizing the public's chronic misunderstanding of the situation. A defense attorney recalls testimony concerning Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs, but Twinkies themselves were never mentioned in the entire trial. Despite this fact, the myth of the "Twinkie Defense" was born and as Pogash noted, "Folklore trumps history."
White was charged with first degree murder but ended up getting convicted of manslaughter and receiving a 7 year sentence, serving only 5 years before he was paroled in 1984. In October 1985, a still depressed White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of a house owned by his wife in San Francisco's Excelsior district.
This split single features two songs about the murders and the events that followed.
And don't forget the Dead Kennedys single recorded when White was released, a cover of Bobby Fuller's "I Fought the Law" ("and *I* Won")
Posted by: Andrew | July 28, 2010 at 10:36 AM
What sort of a defense is it that blames one's diet? Next time my wife falls out with me should I hide her chocolate bars?
Posted by: Steve Derby | July 28, 2010 at 07:46 PM
This involved a gay man in San Francisco. They mentioned hohos and dingdongs, and could have said a few things about twinkies.
Posted by: chamblee54 | July 28, 2010 at 11:58 PM
The tone of this post is all wrong. Dan White was depressed because he was a bigot upset about gays being in SF and specifically, SF government. No sympathy for White. Failure to convict on the charge of murder is a tremendous injustice.
The Times of Harvey Milk is a good documentary on the subject.
Posted by: Scott West | July 29, 2010 at 09:54 AM
These are interesting songs, and I'm glad to have discovered them. Where can one learn more about Art Peterson & Lenny Anderson? I'm Steve Zarate, a singer-songwriter based in Athens, Ohio. After seeing "The Times Of Harvey Milk" in 1984 and reading Randy Shilts' "The Mayor Of Castro Street" in 1990, I wrote a song called "The Ballad Of Harvey Milk" in January 1991. A seven-minute ballad telling Harvey's story & celebrating his spirit, it's on my debut CD, "Homecoming" (1996), & can be heard at www.myspace.com/stevezarate, where a blog entry also presents the song's lyrics and some songwriter's comments. I hope you like it.
Posted by: Steve Zarate | August 17, 2010 at 04:21 PM
I wrote and recorded The Ballad of Dan White noted above. Don't know where Art is these days.
I was working at Union Offset, a small printing company in SF at the time...and playing and writing songs. I printed the program for Harvey Milk's memorial; my tears were on some of the copies.
Posted by: Lenny Anderson | August 28, 2012 at 06:00 PM
Hi Lenny! Haven't seen you for a long time. Hope all is well. I do run across Art every once in a while, although not recently. I see his band, The Polka Cowboys, still playing around. For the rest of you, I recorded this record and issued it on my label, Bay Records. I've been asked who the personnel are on it. I can't find the original notes at present, but I'll do the best I can from memory: Besides Art and Lenny, I think there was Doug Corrigan on drums, Gary Potterton on guitar and Bill Amatneek on bass.
Posted by: Michael Cogan | November 26, 2012 at 06:53 PM
I should update this a bit. Now that I think about it, that may be Gary Potterton on bass and also on dobro. He may also have added some pedal steel licks to The Ballad of Dan White. I'm not sure of the fiddle player. It may be Darol Anger.
Posted by: Michael Cogan | November 27, 2012 at 05:06 PM