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Monday, March 03, 2008
Del Joins Kesey's Acid Test
Del joins the Merry Pranksters
"Kid Charlemagne"
While the music played
You worked by candlelight
Those San Franciscan nights,
You were the best around
Just by chance
You crossed a diamond with a pearl
You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around
Did you feel like Jesus?
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes?
On the hill the stuff was
Laced with kerosene
But your was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motorhome
Every A-frame
Had your number on the wall
You must've had it all
You'd go to L.A. on a dare and you'd go it alone
Clean this mess up
Else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get 'em all outta here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you are…
Careful what you carry
'Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw
In their eyes…
-STEELY DAN song about LSD manufacturer Owsley
Del opened his eyes and quickly squinted under the lights. A barrage of math symbols, pyramids, stars and planets returned. But behind all that was a nagging thought. One that simply wouldn't go away.
Del was a child called in to sit at the kitchen table. He sits obediently as his dad raises the battery acid to his lips. He starts to drink it.
Del's eyes open. He is tripping but he is not enjoying it. He looks around to see a room full of people laying around him. A few are nude. Most are lost in the music and lights. Music, there is a live band playing. He isn't home. He's at an Acid Test. A burly guy built like a wrestler turns to smile at him.
"Owsley made this batch. Isn't this acid great?", the man says.
Stanley Augustus Owsley
Del hears the music. This isn't the hillbilly rock he despised as a folkie. This wasn't the children's love songs like SHE LOVES YOU. This was music going into directions only jazz had been before. This was The Grateful Dead. Del sat up, smiling. The thoughts had passed. He was right there now.
The many faces of Ken Kesey
The man he was talking to had written "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" and was not the kind of person Del would have previously hung with. A jock who had married his high school sweetheart and had a family was not Del's style. But his book had touched a chord with Del, and Del had recognized immediately that the book was about a real life mental institution. One that the writer had taken LSD in. Ken Kesey was no longer the athlete.
He was now a pioneer on the open range of LSD.
http://www.concertposterart.com/images/3228.jpg There has been some controversy over whether or not Del was involved in The Acid Tests. One look at the flyer above the word TEST and you will note his name. I call that, conclusive proof.
Del stands up and sways to the music, begging off doing the lights tonight. He tells Kesey he doesn't want to fool around with the lights and chemicals tripping. Del says he should wait until he can get some crystal to use and do the lights. Kesey smiles his Buddha grin, and Del sits back down. He looks over to the overhead projectors and carton and containers of chemicals. Ken pats Del on the shoulder and steps over people to stand by the band.
This is an acid test.
Crystal is crystal methedrine. Owsley had an interest in the drug as did most speed freaks in the post World War 2 era. Our pilots had been given Dexedrine during the war and came home looking for more. German pilots had been given crystal methedrine to keep them awake- Hitler received 4 to 7 shots a day of the drug. Today we understand the paranoia, anger and devastating effects of speed on the body and mind. In those days however, diet clinics operated legally injecting people with speed and vitamin B-12. Speed was taken by everyone. GI's used it on guard duty, which was how Elvis discovered the drugs. Students used it to cram for exams. Owsley had made his crystal to raise the money to start making LSD.
Del smiled as a naked girl danced in front of him. He was now in the crew known as the Merry Pranksters, and his job would be to run the light show. This wasn't a job in the usual sense, there was no pay as such. A place to crash, food, drugs and sex. Traveling as Del had in the carny from town to town. Only this circus was psychedelic.
As his hallucinations died down Del walked over to the discarded school projectors and stared at them. He began to pour the chemicals onto the screen of one of the projectors, and started swirling them with a paint brush. The crowd let out a cheer and people began rousing themselves to stand up and dance. Del was digging the dancing, the music, and he was getting the hang of the chemicals. Blobs of colors shifted and moved, transformed and reformed again.
Del looked out at the smiling faces of the trippers and knew he belonged. He couldn't wait to work the light show on speed.
Posted at 10:50 am by Psychomike
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Monday, March 10, 2008
The 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival!
MY FIRST POP FESTIVAL
I was at Atlantis Rising when I first saw the poster advertising the Atlanta Pop Festival. I stared at the line-up: there was Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, Ten Wheel Drive, Spirit, Joe Cocker, The Chicago Transit Authority, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sweetwater, Al Kooper, Pacific Gas & Electric, Dave Brubeck, Chuck Berry (who was a no-show, because the streets were blocked for miles) and a new act called Led Zeppelin.
This I knew was where I had to be, and every moment from that day on I thought, talked and awaited the festival. Festivals were a new idea, and I had no idea what to bring with me. I knew there would be refreshment stands, so I figured there would be enough for 20,000 people. What I couldn't know then was there would be over 200,000 people, the heat would go over 100 every day, and that my life would be changed, yet again, just the day after the festival. I say four days because I was high a day and a half after the fest as you will see......
It was a good thing there were so many hippies- because we all shared what we had from pot to beer those three days. There were so many highlights- seeing Janis perform. Canned Heat got the crowd on it's feet and boogying, Grand Funk arrived with a story about having thier van roll over (which would years later turn out to be false), but put on a great show anyway. Dave Brubeck played jazz to an enthusiastic crowd (we didn't have the kind of niched marketing they do now, we didn't know we weren't supposed to like jazz!), I had a great time. I even heard Johnny Rivers play SECRET AGENT MAN! I still love that song!
Not everyone on the poster was there, but for me the highlight was Led Zeppelin. Originally the band was to be called THE NEW YARDBIRDS, but what I saw that afternoon tripping my ass off was nothing like The Yardbirds.
As Jimmy Page, wearing a farmer's hat to keep the sun out of his eyes played and Robert Plant used the microphone for effect, I was transfixed. It was huge, heroic in parts and grandiose in others. I would see the band 8 times over the years, but this show clocking in at under one hour would remain the best performance I ever saw of the band. This was the blues taken to a new level, a mystical level that the audience sat stunned by. A good thing the audience was stunned- critics would hate the band for their first three albums. This was before any reviews had come out on the band, and the crowd's reaction was honest. Half way through the set women were heading toward the stage, and one woman ran across the stage to hug Robert Plant- and was promptly removed. Raw sex appeal, mystical blues, heroic riffs- there was nothing else like them. Janis had impressed me with her control of the crowd as she slinked across the stage, but Led Zeppelin had taken me to a new place.
There was an LSD freakout tent, but there were no drugs for people having bad trips. There were plenty of salt tablets that had been passed out during the heat, so as trippers entered with stories of UFO's and the fest going on forever they were handed a salt tablet and told it was a downer. Then the volunteers would ask people about their jobs, parents- they would come down instantly. I learned about the placebo effect watching the people enter the tent!
When the festival ended I was handed a flyer about a party in Piedmont Park the next day, and I couldn't wait to go keep the festival high going.
I got to the park and walked to the bandshell as Hampton Grease Band were playing, and I noticed the skull and lightening bolt that Owsley had created for the Dead on music equipment. Peter Pan, a blonde I was hot for told me Owsley was at the Fest too! She asked if I knew what he looked like. I said no.
Spirit came on and were phenomenal, much better than at the Festival where bad sound had done them in. When I heard someone say that Owsley was giving out acid. I looked over and saw a guy with a handle bar moustache, older than most of the crowd, with a group of people around him. I walked over and sure enough, people were walking away with hits of acid. I decided I wanted one too.
I approached him after I saw him hand two people in a row the drug and held out my hand for one. He abruptly said, "No way". He then handed one to the person behind me. I was persistent. "There is no way you are even 17", he said to me, "this is not going to be your first trip". I felt crushed. My ID! I had my fake ID! It was resume time I thought, and I pulled it out and handed it to him.
I certainly did not look like a "Randall", but I started talking. I had done peyote, I had read Leary and I was ready. I had actually done those things, and he looked me up and down and handed me a hit. I took it on the spot, and he was called away by one of the roadies.
I had taken acid before, but nothing like this. At some point the Dead were jamming and Duane Allman was onstage and a girl named Mona and I walked over to a bridge to join others having sex there. I was timing myself to the music, but had no sense of how time was flying by. We finished and it was 2 am! I went back to watch the show and grooved until it stopped. One of my pals offered me a ride home but I decided to walk!
I walked back to my Morningside duplex and the sun was beating down on me. I couldn't open my eyes fully because it was too bright. I got to my place and looked at the quilt on my bed. I saw people rising out of the quilt, laughed and looked again only to see a quilt. I decided to play a Donovan album I had and it sounded like the notes were breathing, flowing in the air. I walked onto the porch and the sky was a psychedelic barrage of colors with a big bright sun in the center.
One of my roommates came out and asked if I was ok. I said I was, but I needed my sunglasses. He laughed and said it was 4:30 in the morning!
Owsley went to prison. I quickly realized I would never get acid like that again. Window pane was close, but no cigar.
The images of those four days remain in my memories and I still smile when I remember them. If only the DEA stories of flashbacks had been true. They said years later you would find yourself in an intense acid trip that would come out of nowhere.
I'm still waiting!
Posted at 07:28 pm by Psychomike
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Saturday, March 22, 2008
THE NIGHT I MET JIMI HENDRIX- 10 WEEKS BEFORE HE DIED
My first concert, a big name national act concert, was Jimi Hendrix playing with The Amboy Dukes (and Ted Nugent), The Vanilla Fudge and The Soft Machine. I think tickets were $3.50 and I know there were two shows. Hendrix was trying to downplay his showman theatrics that people had heard about and seen at the Monterrey Pop Festival, but Nugent and lead singer John Drake were off stage and out in the audience. Their show was quite a show, and the remaining tickets for the second show sold out in seconds after their performance. Unfortunately for them, they were fired for "showing off" and didn't get to play the second show. I had tickets for both shows, so I saw Hendrix twice in one day.
Ted Nugent and John Drake put on quite a show- and got booted off the Hendrix tour by phone by manager Chas Chandler! They were paid off for the entire tour.
Jimi did not like playing the South because of the way he was treated by cops and rednecks, so it would take the Second Atlanta Pop Festival for him to play Georgia again.
I stood at my friends car looking at the camera I held in one hand, and a hit of acid in the other. This was my dilemma, here I am waiting to head back to the speedway where the second Atlanta International Pop Festival was and I know taking my 125 dollar camera and losing it would be a tragedy. I had to decide- take the acid, or take the camera.
I looked at the list of names playing, Hendrix, Bloodrock, Spirit, Jethro Tull, Johnny Winter, The Chambers Brothers, Ten Years After. The Allman Brothers, who hadn't played the first festival were not only set to play this one but were the lead act! This I decided, was a night for tripping. After all I could take pictures of the bands later, next year. This was going to be a blast. So I put the camera in the trunk of my friends car, and headed back to the grounds. I had been to a lake to try and cool off from the over 100 degree heat where I discovered people having sex in the bushes, on a slide, right out in the open. I realized I probably wouldn't reconnect with my pals until the next day, but at least I knew where the car was. So I went back to the grounds. As I got inside I could feel the tingling in my jaw and my face relaxed into a smile. I walked around the crowd to the stage and people were standing around discussing the fact that the bikers doing security had left because they hadn't received the beer they were promised. One hand and a slight push and the small fence separating the crowd from the backstage was gone.
 Grand Funk Railroads live excitement never made it on record- they arrived in a helicopter to the show, too!
The Chambers Brothers did their song TIME HAS COME TODAY and it was an unforgettable performance- which caused a long line at the LSD OD tent, too! The Temptations and Chambers Brothers were doing psychedelic music which signalled that LSD had hit the working class. Songs like PSYCHEDELIC SHACK, CLOUD 9 sigalled a change in the Detroit/ Gary sound. The door was kicked all the way down when The Funkadelics released MAGGOTBRAIN.
A helicopter flew over the crowd.
This was amazing. Hendrix was arriving from the sky.
When Jimi Hendrix arrived he had a headband made from cloth and a shirt that was opened enough to give the women eyeing him a glimpse of his chest. He was smiling and asking where he could tune up. One of the musicians said onstage! Hendrix rolled his eyes, signed an autograph for a girl and I spoke up. I told him I had seen him play when he first came to Atlanta with Ted Nugent and The Amboy Dukes, The Soft Machine and The Vanilla Fudge twice in one day. He looked at me quizzically and asked how old I was. Before I could answer I remembered my fake ID in my pocket and told him 19. I didn't tell anyone how young I was in those days. He asked me about the scene in Atlanta, and said to me the scene in San Francisco was over "because of the teenyboppers". Ouch. We spoke for about 20 minutes before some promoter types came by and grabbed him for photos.
I decided I would walk to the front of the stage to see him play and sure enough, at the start of some of the songs they were all out of tune, but within a minute everything was fine. A girl that saw me leave the backstage area asked if I knew Hendrix and I said I just met and talked to him, and she began making out with me in front of the stage while he played. G-R-O-O-V-Y. here you can actually see the videos of Jimi performing at the Festival. http://www.thestripproject.com/1970_Atlanta_Pop_Festival.html
We went off after he finished playing and found a spot to ball and by the end I was coming down from my trip. She left to find her boyfriend (!) and I headed back to the car.
Two festivals and I had seen the top acts of the day. But there are times I wish I had photos of the night I met Jimi Hendrix!
Posted at 11:54 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, April 03, 2008
On his deathbed, comedy genius Del Close held court at one last party.
Del Close is perhaps the least famous of the great comedy maestros of the latter half of the 20th century. The performers he worked with, directed, or taught at the Compass Players in Saint Louis, the Committee in San Francisco, and Second City and the ImprovOlympic in Chicago constitute a who’s who—Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Shelly Berman, Fred Willard, Joe Flaherty, John Belushi, John Candy, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Vince Vaughn, Tina Fey, and Stephen Colbert, to name only a handful. But his ultimate legacy might be theoretical: Close led the movement to reinvent improvisation and establish it as an art form.
Self-destructive and occasionally suicidal, Close nevertheless lived almost to the age of 65, when emphysema did him in. As he lay on his deathbed in a Chicago hospital in 1999, his friends flew in from around the country to throw him one last birthday party. One of those friends, Kim “Howard” Johnson, has recently published The Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close (Chicago Review Press); this is an excerpt: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/delclose/
Posted at 08:22 am by Psychomike
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Saturday, June 21, 2008
THE DARKNESS COMES
Everything on the street had changed. Atlanta was not crazy about hippies in the area and had tried various methods to keep the onslaught of thousands of Southern outcasts, the curious and teenyboppers from flooding the small area we lived in.There were times when police returned to the tactics of the depression in dealing with us. In the depression folks were discouraged from entering states looking for work that wasn't there, now the city was trying to figure out what to do with the hippies on the way and were trying to discourage people from moving into the area. I learned really quick to have my fake ID on me at all times but it was getting tiring. I still remember the night I was eating dinner in a restaurant, as cops entered and asked every long hair for their ID. The fun was slipping away.
What did I have to show for it? A pocketful of sunshine. The warmth and camaraderie of the community had outlasted the hippie areas in other parts of the world, here was this last enclave that was just beginning to be hit by speed, crime and the police.
It was like this, dig, I needed a place to crash because I was cross town and had awakened from smoking Vietnamese pot in a bong, so I went out to catch the bus, which I discovered hours before had stopped running. A fellow longhair walked by, I told him my predicament and he offered me a place to crash. Only thing was he was on his way to his girlfriends, so he handed me his keys and pointed out where he lived so I could crash on the couch.
What had pulled us together like this?
We had been beaten, some girls raped, The Bird office had been shot at. This cloud was passing over all of us. It was a change that drifted across the community in fact the entire country and it had a name. MANSON.
The press and the prosecution had a field day comparing all hippies to Manson, all LSD users to murderers, all long hairs to dangerous thugs.
As a child I had first seen Sharon Tate on an episode of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and let me tell you she was so beautiful it was obvious to me this was a special girl. Found stabbed to death over 14 times after begging for her life and her unborn baby, I couldn't believe anyone would destroy anything so lovely,
Sharon Tate would have been the first star to pose pregnant years before Demi Moore or Britney, unfortunately this picture was taken the day of the murder.
The Manson arrest and newspaper trial had become a trial of a generation. Us.
As a child I first saw Sharon Tate on TV and was amazed. All girls weren't like my mom!
And they had it all to use against us. Beatles records. Drugs. Sex. New Age beliefs. Communes.Hippies. Revolution. Ecology. Being against the war. EVERYTHING. President Nixon voiced his belief the Manson family were all guilty and almost forced an end to the trial with his reckless talk.
I was use to being asked for my ID, but now the cops remembered my name and called it when they asked for me. They watched me, like now they were on to us all. And the press churned the stories out. Manson had brought dead birds back to life, the press babbled, hippies were getting instructions for revolution from Beatles music. LSD had turned a generation insane.
And they made a mistake that would later come back to haunt them. Somehow it wasn't just the fear of maybe 3% of young people. Somehow it became all young people. the tourists who filled their cars and came to look at us found themselves pulled over if they were young. By beginning to treat all young people as the same enemy, they were laying the seeds that would turn demonstrations from several hundred to hundreds of thousands.
Did I realize this all then? I had begun to think about the war, the change in the streets, but had yet to find my voice. My voice was coming, and it would make a loud boom in Atlanta and even nationally. For now I was happy to have free love and enjoy my days and nights. Part of me wondered what love was like, but not enough to stop the fun.
One night, sitting in front of Atlantis Rising a stunning woman I had never seen before walked by with long blond hair and I said, "Hey chick, what's happening?". She turned, walked over to me pointing her finger in my face and said, "Don't you ever call me chick again", and walked away. My buddies sitting next to me cracked up, but I was wondering what the button was she was wearing meant. It looked like a fist coming out of the women's symbol.
I had no way of knowing, but the party was coming to an end. Her accent sounded odd to me, a pal said it was a Boston accent. I chalked up her comment to Northern rudeness. Everyone said chick, even chicks, and the line had helped me get laid before! My reasoning did not see what was coming.
I picked up the newspaper at the Krispy Kreme and saw an article that might just give me a focus. The article was about Buddy Holly, one of my heroes and the studio in Clovis, New Mexico that his band still owned and recorded at. In fact, they were quoted as saying they had tapes of loads of Buddy and The Crickets and I thought this would make a great article. Hitchhike to Clovis and get the story, use it to get a job writing for an underground newspaper. I had to get hold of Sandy the hooker and the AWOL soldier and begin the journey with them to New Orleans during Mardis Gras.
At the time the plan seemed easy..............
Posted at 09:52 am by Psychomike
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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
PUNK ROCK, ART GIRL, MY FIRST STALKER
Occasionally I do finish a story, like the story of Art Girl. http://subgeniusslack.blogdrive.com/archive/9.html It has taken awhile, but here's the story. When punk hit I was blown away. Although it wasn't covered by publications like ROLLING STONE, it was huge in fanzines- fan based music publications.
Because mainstream music mags wanted nothing to do with the music, fanzines filled the void. Like the beginnings of the hippie music scene that started at art schools (and the military as so many musicians from David Crosby and Jimi Hendrix had been in the military), to bands like the Stones and Who earlier (all from art schools or had members in them) punk would meld into the art world and I helped bring it to Chicago.
When I heard that Patti Smith, then a New York poet dating a member of Blue Oyster Cult would be in town to sing on their encore numbers (she actually wrote a few of their songs) I got tickets. None of my friends at the Art Institute knew who she was, had seen her books of poetry, or had much interest in a heavy metal band.
She kept the light open, all night long
For me to come home, and sing her my song
Oh Debbie Denise was true to me
She'd wait by the window, so patiently
And I'd come on home with my hair hanging down
She'd pin it up, and softly smile
But I was out rolling with my band
And I was out rolling with my band
I never realized, she was so undone
I didn't suspect she had no life of her own
She was so true but she was a she
She was just there I would just come
Stumbling in she'd show me she'd care
I didn't care cause she was just there
But I was out rolling with my band
And I was out rolling with my band
I wouldn't come home for weeks at a time
She wouldn't accept that she was free
Oh Debbie Denise was true to me
She'd wait by the window so bitterly
Wanting me to come close, I guess I noticed
I couldn't see, so what could I say
That more affection could I show her
I had only one thing on my mind
When I come to her, she'd pin back my hair
And out past the fields out the window I'd stare
Where I was out rolling with my band
I was out rolling with my band
BLUE OYSTER CULT AND PATTI SMITH
The Art Institute was a mix of hippies and Nam era vets. I had actually been a hippie and was tired of the way that scene degenerated, had taken to wearing biker jackets to school and ordering bootleg punk shows from NYC on cassette tapes. The UK with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren beckoned and their new take on clothes beckoned.
I knew there was an alternative to arena rock and disco, and I knew it would hit hard. As word spread through the school that I knew about this "movement" from the fashion department to painting, people started to come up to talk to me around the school. That was how I met Art Girl. She was married to a security guard and had invited me over after her husband went to work. When I showed up she was in her nighties and began kissing me at the door and this routine would continue for weeks.
That's when she told me she was being blackmailed into having sex with a black guy she had previously fucked into having sex with her and she asked if I could scare him off. For the kind of sex we were having, I said yes. To show how naive I was about a real relationship, there were no warning flags on the field - married, blackmailed, seeing her after her husband left for work, zero.
When I did finally get a warning signal I was talked out of it. I went to Le Mere Viper, a Puerto Rican lesbian bar that one night a month began having punk music nights an hour earlier than I was supposed to and she was making out with some guy. I turned to leave, she followed me down the street and talked her way out of it. Or I guess, told me what I wanted to hear to ignore what I saw. She told me she loved me. She was willing to divorce her husband, and did.
I had more sex than Hugh Hefner's total- before I was 18. I had become somewhat in demand as Art Institute girls began hearing that I actually knew what I was doing (there is a famous tale of me banging a girl I picked up in the cafeteria in a room that students smoked pot in, some dozen students walked in to catch me in the act!),
but I knew less than zero about love.
I met Art Girls best friend Junkie Girl. For some reason, people into heroin never liked me. When Junkie Girl found out I was at college on scholarships she confronted me, saying that if she were poor she'd never admit it, and I must have no shame. This, for winning scholarships! She would send letters to the press when they covered the things I was doing claiming everything from me having AIDS to being a school bus driver responsible for the deaths of kids in Indiana ( I don't drive). For years this went on, as she endeavored to "expose me". God only knows what the press thought. Long after Art Girl and I were through, for quite a few years, she circulated letters spreading absurd crap about me.
Art Girl had a couple of surprises for me.
The last two years I was in school I taught for salary - I was teaching students who were my fellow students. Not bad for a kid that went through the admissions process three times with nothing in my portfolio but a three minute film. Stan Brakhage, Ken Anger and John Schofill intervened to get me admitted. Brakhage actually threatened to quit teaching unless I was admitted!
This only got many students and Professors angry at me. Before I graduated, three museums had purchased my underground film, ORGASM.
I was going to Don Seidan's graduating class party and at the last second Art Girl suddenly said she had a headache and couldn't go. She gave me a drink and when I got to the party I became violently ill- in front of the graduating students. Though we lived just a few blocks from the party, Art Girl was too busy to come get me. I passed out on Don's bed. Not a very good impression.
A few weeks later, an artist named Montana who was dating a doctor contacted me and said her boyfriend was having an affair with Art Girl, and they had drugged me so they could rendezvous. She had heard them on the phone. I got home and threw her out barefoot in below zero weather.
A couple of weeks later, she enticed me back. Without telling anyone, she begged forgiveness and started seeing me for sex again.
Two months later, we were to go on a boat party and walked to the river to board. She told me these words I will never forget:
I AM GETTING MARRIED IN TWO WEEKS. BUT DON'T WORRY, I CAN STILL SEE YOU EVERY WEEK.
There was no way to describe the devastation. Funny thing was, it wasn't to the Doctor!
Everyone was getting played with Art Girl.
I walked away with tears streaming down my face.
To this day, people from the early punk days still tell me she was the one, that they all thought she was the one I'd marry. That she was so nice and cool.
I guess she fooled them, too. I lost my chance to teach as a result of her antics. People I thought were friends were elated over me being brought down several notches.
She went into fashion for several years, and then switched careers.
SHE BECAME AN ARTS TEACHER! The career she denied me.
Posted at 02:02 pm by Psychomike
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Monday, September 01, 2008
HOW TO SPEAK HIP
Released in 1959, this album captures the underground comedians at their early best and manages to both lampoon and accurately encapsulate the difference between hip and square society at the time. Unlike other mean-spirited comedy takes on the beatnik craze (Allan Sherman's "The Rebel" springs to mind), Close and Brent's satire was close to the truth because they truly were bohemian spirits. John Brent wrote poetry and honed his "Geets Romo" character (also known as "Huey the Hipster") while acting in a Jules Feiffer play. Del Close was an actor and poetry director at the Gaslight. And they both became well-known as being early members of Chicago's Second City.
Even though Del Close plays the square reporter on How To Speak Hip, he went on to live one of the most exciting (and hyperbolic) lives in comedy history. He befriended, worked with, and quite often did copious amounts of drugs with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Wavy Gravy, Frank Zappa, Tiny Tim, the Grateful Dead, and the Merry Pranksters. Hear the album here:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/08/how-to-speak-hi.html
Posted at 11:50 pm by Psychomike
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Thursday, October 02, 2008
1970: AS THE WORLD TURNS!
DRIVING INTO NEW ORLEANS; MARDIS GRAS!
It has been quite a while since I wrote on my hitchhiking across America story. You can catch the preludes here :
Well folks I've been working on a play THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE that I've been too swamped to get over here. Hitchhiking across country was a means of transportation those days and plenty of people would pick you up. In some cities like LA and San Francisco people waited in lines of at times over 100 people waiting for a ride. There were dangers, but when you're young you don't think you can run into them. I had no idea I'd be hitchhiking out of New Orleans!
So I hopped in the van with my new found pals and we drove towards New Orleans. Smoking joints and drinking along the way. America was in shock over the Manson murders and there had even been a copy cat murder when a soldier would kill his wife and kids- and blame hippies. 1969 had a huge film event that touched all of us, the movie EASY RIDER http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7tuUG6dLv4 which also tapped into the anger people were feeling towards us and all hippies I suppose immediately identified with. At the start of 1970 American flag jackets and shirts began to appear, the wandering lust was calling out to us.
James MacDonald would wipe out his family and blame hippies, but the cops investigating him doubted his story of a hippie killer clan, even after Manson.
Mick Jagger had paid a fine for pot possession.
The Chicago 7 had been cleared of conspiring to riot at the convention. The cops knee shows who was rioting:
BLACK SABBATH had put out an album which suddenly showed up in vans on 8 track all over America.
The Mai Lai Massacre indictments showed America a side of war it had never seen before:
Dead children was too much for even the Army to take
and Americans looked at pictures and began to wonder what we were trying to win. The one two punch had felt the first blow, Kent State would be the second.
It was a interesting time! The Chinese by the way, call "interesting times" a curse, as in, "May you live in interesting times" is not delivered with a smile!
We pulled into New Orleans and I couldn't believe it, the fog was drifting through the streets. It was a scene out of an old Jack the Ripper movie, the buildings looked old and we got out at the building we were to stay at. It was a office building, but it was clean and big and had showers and toilets. In keeping with the priorities of the day, we decided to trip that night! We walked into the city each going our own ways after writing the address and streets of where we were staying down. The keys were to be left in the mailbox and returned there by each person.
I journeyed into the new city tripping and came upon a guy selling a tourist paper. I talked to him, Carlos I'll call him, and he took me to his home. Here we smoked pot, I found out he published the paper which was mostly bar ads for tourists in for Mardis Gras and the first thing he told me as he rolled up a joint surprised me. He told me not to be on the streets at the end of Mardis Gras because the police would sweep through, arrest all hippies and put them to work to clean!
Life under Jim Garrison!
Not even Atlanta ever did anything like that, but I found out later he wasn't kidding.
I had made my first friend in New Orleans, and he was a writer! That morning I walked back to where we were, and passed by a coffee and beignets and heard a woman scream. I looked over and saw a woman dressed in a business dress yelling at two redneck cops that the person she was with was here on business. He was on the ground in a suit and tie, as the two cops beat him first with their fists and then their clubs. They beat him into the streets and looked right up at me and told me to get the hell out and I did.
I headed back to my place thinking about the difference between what I had been taught America was like, and what it was really like.
Posted at 08:30 pm by Psychomike
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Wednesday, October 08, 2008
ON THE ROAD
When I got back to the storefront in New Orleans I was confronted by Danny. It seems after I left Atlanta my crew cutted Dad had gone to where I lived and asked my roommates if I was around. Stoned, they mistook my dad bringing me my comic book collection- for a cop. I had no idea what Danny was talking about when he said the cops were looking for me in Atlanta, handed me a bag with about 1/3 of the LSD and pot I had found and told me I'd have to stay somewhere else. I was shell shocked, and headed over to the writers pad.
I told him I had just lost my pad and he quickly offered me his. He didn't even ask why I had lost it, those were the days. He told me he was going to be selling papers in front of a concert venue and we could check out the band. They were called Z.Z. Top and tickets were $2. I had never heard of them but he said that all the bands playing at the venue were cool, and it was a great way to meet other hippies in the area. I looked through the papers he had, and found a copy of Rolling Stone when I caught a story about one of my heroes, Buddy Holly. It seems his band had a recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico and many tapes of them rehearsing and working on songs. I got the idea to go to Clovis and interview them for the paper, listen to some unreleased tracks and tapes of how they worked together. First however, I had to check out Mardis Gras.
Z.Z. Top before they had the long beards!
We quickly sold out of papers to the New Orleans hippies going to see Z.Z. Top and joined them inside this warehouse building. I don't remember the opening act, but I had a great time watching Z.Z. Top as the smell of reefer permeated the hall. Joints came at us from every direction until I couldn't smoke anymore. People didn't just pass a joint to their date or immediate friends in those days, the joint would disappear into the crowd! If someone held on to it while speed rapping someone would say, "Don't Bogart that joint" and the joint would continue on its way.
Mardis Gras has the biggest crowds at the end but for almost two weeks leading up to it there are all kinds of parades and events. Mardis Gras was a drinking party, it seemed like everywhere I went women- straight women(!) were flashing their breasts for beads. People were throwing up in the streets. Fights were breaking out over nothing. It was a great time.
Mardis Gras itself I was told was a pre-Christian celebration, a fertility party based on the Lupercus celebrations in ancient Rome. Those were drunken street orgies that were followed up by 40 days of fasting. One night walking home I decided I needed to take a leak and couldn't wait, so I turned into an alley only to see a half dozen couples having sex standing up against the wall! Give me that old time religion!
The Christians gave up trying to get converted pagans to stop the party and named the period foremerly known as the fast, Lent.
When otherwise newly uptight Christians discovered they could get away with drunkeness and orgies the practice spread throught Europe. In England the noblemen would hand out cakes and dubloons to the poor, which is how we got the King Cake and beads for boobs.
When the French owned Louisianna they were appalled at the "drunken orgys" and banned the party. Once they sold the state, the Creoles convinced the government to re-instate it. Originally, they wanted to do it all year long, but that was asking a lot!
The floats in the parades are unreal- they are created by krewes as they are called, and can be racist, silly, sexy, and fun. Or at least that's the way it was in 1970.
Mardis Gras was and remains an open celebration of lust.
To get arrested you had to really go out of your way in those early days of the celebration, smoking a joint would suffice. So I'd get wasted until I left the pad for the Bourbon Street area. It didn't take long for me to find the hippie chicks, strippers and straight girls who wondered what sex with a hippie was like. Once again I was scoring every day to my roommates astonishment.
One incident made me decide I should move on. I went to the strippers parade and found myself in a crowd so packed my feet were off the sidewalk. I was being held up in mid-air, and if I had fainted, I had no idea who would be able to pick me up. It was a scary experience, and I was starting to get tired of the drinking and crowds which were only growing larger. After the parade I sat on the sidewalk to gather my wits, and a young woman came up to me and asked me my name.
"Flash", I said, which was my hippie name in Atlanta. She was gorgeous, but dressed in what I would call straight clothes. She did however have a cleft in her chin and dimples on her cheeks, a look that still gets to me. She invited me to see a movie with her! Well, this seemed cool, until she told me it was a Barbra Streisand movie. Getting laid was pretty easy in The Big Easy, so I said no! She asked me what kinds of films hippies liked, I said I wasn't a hippie (all hippies said that), and how about going to my pad to smoke a joint and listen to some music?
She confessed she hadn't smoked a joint before, so, OK!
We got to the pad and my apartment mate was gone and started smoking pot. By the third joint I was locking lips and blowing the smoke in my mouth into hers. For the first time and last time in my life, we started fucking to Simon and Garfunkles BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER. She selected it, don't blame me! We hung out for a day and a night, I told her my plan to go to Clovis, and she asked if she could come along! I said yes, she quit her job over the phone, and we were going to drive to Clovis. That next day!
She left and a couple of hours later my roommate came home and told me to come outside and watch what was going on. We walked carefully outside and peaked around a corner. There I saw about 30 hippies under arrest and being put in police wagons. Some were saying they weren't vagrants and were staying at hotels. One showed a cop his room key, the cop took it, threw it down on the ground and said that now the hippie was a vagrant! I decided I was getting out while the getting was good.
She made good her promise, and showed up in her car the next day. I said goodbye to my writer friend, rubbed my lucky quarter for good luck, and off we went.
I finally asked her what her last name was.
Posted at 09:50 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, November 09, 2008
DEL GETS SMART
Del drifted in and out of sleep as the sound of a siren, a woman on the rocks, filled his eyes. Was she a mermaid? Then came a loud piercing ring, he opened his eyes.
The second alarm of three had gone off. Usually he would have waited for the third but today was a big day. He sat up, cut off the two alarms, and lit a cig. He looked around the room until he saw the third alarm waiting to go off. Before it could, he rose out of bed and walked over to shut it off. Time to shower and shave, grab some coffee, and head to the studio. He carried his cig into the shower and thought about what his agent had told him.
If he pulled this off, he would have a sizable weekly paycheck as a recurring character on GET SMART the wildly successful show created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks. He had feelings of anxiety mixed with excitement as he put out his cig and dried himself off.
Anxiety is a feeling all actors know. The smart ones know how to use it, the not so bright ones let it panic them. To be an actor is to go against everything we are taught, the biggest fears most people have, speaking in public and looking for work, an actor has to do all the time.
Del got to the studio straighter than he'd been in years and ready to work. He walked into the stage building and noticed a cluster of women chatting all at once excited and overly expressive. He asked the guard what was going on and was told there was secret special guest due on the set and everyone was trying to find out who it was.
Del knew it wasn't him, and wondered if some past star was going to be trying out for his role, too. He assured himself that he was a huge James Bond fan, knew the role of Q in the film series, and could toast anyone else trying out for the satirical version of the role.
Upon entering on his way to the dressing room he saw Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, excited and glancing at each person coming in. They looked at Del, then quickly looked away.
Del got his clothes and headed over to hair and makeup where all the girls were speculating on who was coming. He walked out after they makeupped him and was led to a set with Don Adams and his TV boss Edward Platt who were engrossed in discussing how exciting the secret star was going to be. Del looked for the director, but his assistant was directing the scene. He asked about a rehearsal and said he had questions about his character but was told there was no time for that- they had to shoot "and get this scene over with as fast as possible".
Del wasn't at all happy with the scene, or the preoccupation of the cast on the special guest. The scene was over way too fast. There weren't a lot of takes.
Del took his clothes back to wardrobe and put his own clothes back on. He knew he hadn't done well, and knew no one was paying any attention to him at all.
As he walked out of the building the guest star entered.
JOHNNY CARSON!
Actors have to overcome a lot. That fate, circumstance or even getting a break is outside the realm of their abilities and that means they have little control over whether they make it or not. Actors can put obstacles in their way, the ones who fail usually do, but even those who are gung ho can be undone by - well, a special guest appearing on a show.
With the wrong girlfriend.
With too much booze or drugs.
Without money to keep going.
With the flutter of a butterflies wings.
Posted at 09:20 am by Psychomike
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