In May 2023, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of the book “Standin’ in a Hard Rain”
with the author Joel Eis as part of a small group WBW book club limited
to a group of 18 participants.
Joel will send each participant a signed
hardcopy of the book or an electronic copy (your choice). We'll let you
know which parts of the book will be discussed each week along with the
Zoom details to access the discussions.
This is a brand new book, published by World BEYOND War.
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Mail is slow. The sooner you sign up, the sooner we can send you the book.
When: For one hour on four Tuesdays/Wednesdays, May 2, 9, 16, 23, 2023. The time is UTC 00:00 Wednesday, which means:
Tuesdays at 2 pm in Honolulu, 5 pm in Los Angeles, 6 pm in Mexico City, 8 pm in New York.
Wednesdays at 8 am in Beijing, 9 am in Tokyo, 10 am in Sydney, and noon in Auckland.
Where: Zoom (details to be shared upon registration).
This is a small group series with limited space of up to 18
people. Sign up to reserve your spot and allow for enough time to
receive the book. We look forward to reading and discussing this
important book with you!
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About the Book:
“Standin’ in a Hard Rain” is the fast paced,
personal, "boots-on-the-ground," front line account of major events by a
dedicated radical in the 1960’s (and beyond) who found himself at the
table with the planners and out in the street, running from the cops.
It tells the story of how and why an
ordinary suburban kid became a committed radical who was with the
Freedom Riders in the Deep South, the Strike of '68 at S.F. State
University (the longest, most violent student strike in American
History) the Draft Resistance with David Harris and Joan Baez, the Grape
Strike with Caesar Chavez, Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver and the
Panthers. I faced a bayonet at my own throat from the National Guard at
Berkeley’s People’s Park.
Standin’ in a Hard Rain traces
the difficult transition after this revolutionary period of a
generation trying to do something productive with our lives in a country
in which we felt alienated. It ends with me burning my draft card at
the age of 73.
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About the Author:
I was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Fresno, California.
Beginning life as “red diaper” baby in a pro-labor Jewish household. My
parents refused to cross picket lines. At age eight, I played in my
communist uncle’s back yard with Carl Bernstein.
From my college days on, I seemed to be in the right place at the right time to be on the front
lines of some of the major events of the 1960's. Student strikes, draft
resistance, the Grape strike in California. I even helped get Eldridge
Cleaver out of the country away from the FBI.
I worked in important radical theatre companies for progressive
change. This put me in front of the crowd but it also increased the
surveillance on my activities.
I was not afraid to be one of the people our parents warned us
against. I was followed and informed on. My phone was tapped. I was shot
at and I did some time in jail. The last time I saw my FBI file it was
as thick as a small city phone book.
After a career as a professional theatre designer and professor,
my wife Toni and I own and run a small bookstore north of San Francisco.
We use the space for workshops and public events. I talk politics with
my customers all day.
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EDUCATION
M.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute, Performance Art/New Genres,
Masters Degree: Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. Directing/Design.
Bachelors Degree: University of California; Santa Barbara, California Acting/Directing
TEACHING / ARTS RESIDENCIES
Instructor, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA
Instructor, Playwriting, Design, Tech Fort Lewis Col. Durango, CO.
Prof. of Speech/Communication/Design Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks
Professor of Design, Florida International University, Miami, Fl.
Professor of Design, Randolph Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, VA
Professor of Theatre State University of West Georgia, Carrollton GA
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
2004 A Full Investigation of the Historic Performance of the First Play in English in the New World, Ye Bare and Ye Cubbe, 1665 (Lewiston: NY, Edwin Mellen Press)
2014 The Function of the Ekkyklema in Greek Theatre, Edwin Mellen Press,
2021 The First Play in English in America and its Cntribution to the First Amendment. Edwin Mellen Press
PLAYS WRITTEN AND PRODUCED
2017 Way Out West, Ross Valley player, Ross Valley, CA
2012 The Play in August, University of Maryland, Salisbury, MD
2008 Fire in My Hands, Western Regional Playwrights Symposium, Denver Co
2007 Like Trains in the Night, Denver Actors Theatre, Denver Co
1996 Hamlet -or- The Great Mechanical (revision of Shakespeare's Hamlet) New Company, SOMAR Theatre, S.F. CA
1995 Ubu! The Musical! The New Company, Brave New World Cabaret
1994 "All the Right Moves” The New Company; Laval’s Subterranean, Berkeley, CA
1994 Ceremonies, The New Company Potrero Hill Theatre, S F, CA.
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Praise for the Book:
Standin' in a Hard Rain is a clear-eyed, passionate account
of how your generation became activists. This fast-moving memoir shows
ordinary people standing up for what’s right!”
Tom Wallace, Former Senior Editor, Simon and Shuster,
CEO, Wallace Literary Agency, NYC.
“Joel Eis’ STANDIN’ IN A HARD RAIN: The Making of a Revolutionary Life
lets us experience, up close and personal, the hard choices, dangerous
situations, and political dilemmas that made a significant impact in the
uprising that changed America forever. Eis’ book is a useful and
compelling read as the nation once again tries to find its bearings.”
David Harris,
Organizer of the National Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War,
Federal prisoner for refusing the draft 12-time book author
Author/Correspondent, NY Times, Rolling Stone Magazine
“Joel Eis’ memoir is an amazing story. Somehow, he
happened to be in the right place at the right time in the sixties. It’s
the story of a left wing Forrest Gump, only it’s real!”
Will Durst, award- winning, Nationally acclaimed comedian, Author
Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
“Joel Eis has written a clear, concise tale of active radicalism
in the Bay Area in the 1960s. Absolutely free of cant, clear-eyed, and
good humored, it’s great to read, this tale of someone sharing radical
activities at the same time. It’s a great history lesson. He’s an
immediate new literary friend.”
Peter Coyote
Actor with the SF. Mime Troupe,
Author, narrator of the Ken Burns film on the Vietnam War
“Joel Eis’, Standin’ in a Hard Rain reminds us of the
energy and times back in the day. Eis’ book and life of activism in the
arts illustrates how ‘history is personal.’ It shares a captivating
tale. It’s an enjoyable page-turner, a personal view into life as a
radical in the 60’s and since.
Laurel Krause, Sister of Allison Krause, murdered by the National Guard at Kent State, May 4, 1970
“Joel Eis supplies authentic history, personal and political,
with rigorous candor and valuable insights in “Standin’ in a Hard Rain,”
a memoir that provides concentric narratives of individual and social
evolution during the pivotal decades from the 1960’s forward. By writing
from firsthand experience, Eis shares human dimensions that go deeply
beneath the clichés and myths. The result is a book resonating with
vitality.”
Norman Solomon, Founder, Institute for Public Accuracy.
Author of, War Made Easy, and Made Love, Got War.
“Standin' in a Hard Rain is an important
book in an age where dissent and justice itself has been given a bad
name. Eis writes the funny, human tale of a nice Jewish boy who comes of
age in the 1960's, the most turbulent decade in America since the Civil
War. He picks up the gauntlet and makes their causes his own. Eis talks
about revolution, not in grand abstractions, but in details of everyday
life. Eis' rich detailed stories demand that you pay attention, and
that you choose a side, before we all lose the right to choose for
good.”
Gerald Nicosia
Author, Home to War, the History of the Veteran’s Anti-War Movement
and Memory Babe, (definitive Bio of Jack Kerouac.)
Standin’ in a Hard Rain is an account of the
life of an anti-war organizer during that time. It’s spot on. Mr. Eis’
book was entertaining and fun to read. It may serve as a guidebook to
young people who are seeking progressive change. It’s an entertaining
and informative read.”
Paul Dunham, Draft Resistance leader 1968-1971.
Incarcerated, Lompoc Federal Prison for refusing induction
“Joel Eis’ memoir, Standin’ in a Hard Rain, is of
particular interest to me. He captures the social and political divide
of America’s involvement in the undeclared War in Vietnam. As a Vietnam
veteran and a gay man, I felt the ambiguous urgency in both the tone and
content of Eis’ writings. He conveys the angst of a young generation.
Joel Eis’ book speaks to the public’s disgust at the more than 50,000+
war deaths a war that the military knew we couldn’t win.
Joseph Zaccardi, Vietnam War Veteran, United States Navy
Poet laureate of Marin County, CA (2013-2015)
“Standin’ in a Hard Rain is a total trip through the last half of the 20th
century. I know because I was there. You’re inside the Civil Rights
movement with Black Power figures such as Eldridge Cleaver and Angela
Davis, on stage (and back stage) with the radical theater companies, in
the street and in the back room meetings with the Anti-war movement.
It’s a good slice of history well served.”
Doug Rippey, Former draft resister, Vietnam Antiwar Movement
“I was spellbound by Joel Eis' Standin' in a Hard Rain
from the start. Eis tells his story of what it was like to be an
anti-war activist in California's Central Valley in the late 60's and
early 70's. Eis makes the reader feel like they are there. 50 years
later I remain in the struggle for social and economic justice, and
appreciative of how this book reclaims our history for the waves of
activists to come.”
Mike Rhodes, Life-time activist, author
Editorial board, Community Alliance Newspaper, Fresno, CA
Joel Eis’s remarkable memoir Standin’ in a Hard Rain, the Making of a Revolutionary Life, answers the question “How—and why—did
a boy from suburbia become a committed radical? Eis does not lecture or
grandstand but he does share with the reader the price of their
decisions if they choose to get involved. Standin’ in a Hard Rain
offers today’s young generation important insight to their own
struggles unfolding in the streets of America today. Eis passes the
torch to the next generation. He’s not only rooting for you. He’s
counting on you.
Rosa del Duca
Army National Guard Veteran (Iraq/Afghanistan War period)
Author, Breaking Cadence One Woman’s War Against the War (Ooligan Press, 2019, Winner, NYC Book Award for Memoir)
Buying one ticket covers all four sessions plus the book.
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