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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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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
We pause now from the story that never seems to end to present - my new show ad:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE: THE CHRISTMAS EDITION!
Put the X back into X-Mas this December when THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE: The X-Mas Edition, pops up at The Liar's Club, 1665 W Fullerton, 773- 665- 1110. NO RESERVATIONS ACCEPTED, DOORS OPEN AT 8:00 PM, SHOW STARTS PROMPTLY AT 8:15. Admission is $10. THIS SPECIAL CHRISTMAS EDITION will run for 6 performances only. YOU MUST BE 21 OR OVER TO ATTEND. Dec 5,6, 12, 13, 19, 20 ONLY!
The Iroquois Theater Fire within twenty minutes, claimed 602 lives on December 30, 1903. There is no sign to honor the dead all these years later, in THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE you will relive the panic and horror of the audience trapped inside the theater. That is just one of the many Chicago area supernatural stories you'll discover in the show, which will also contain the Pagan origins of Christmas! LET'S PUT THE X BACK INTO X-MAS!
THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE ran to standing room only crowds at The Liar's Club- you don't want to miss this unusual theatre experience - where the entire bar is the stage, in the Special Christmas Edition! This Christmas show is not for kids!
Christmas Fears!
THE BRIDES OF GHOST HUNTER RICHARD CROWE- CHRISTMAS EDITION IS COMING!
Because the terror doesn't end on Halloween........
Friday and Saturday Nights
Liar's Club
Dec 5,6, 12, 13, 19, 20 ONLY!
8PM Doors open, 8:15 show $10
http://ghosthunter.blogdrive.com
Posted at 09:11 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, November 27, 2008
COCAINE ALL AROUND MY BRAIN
Ev'ry time my baby an' me we go uptown Police come an' they knock me down -- Cocaine, all around my brain.
Hey, baby, won't you come here quick;
This old cocaine is 'bout to make me sick --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
Yonder come my baby, she's dressed in red,
She's got a shotgun, says she's gonna kill me dead --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
Hey, baby, will you come here quick;
This old cocaine 'bout to make me sick --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
You take Sally, an' I take Sue,
Ain't no difference between the two --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
Hey, baby, ya better come here quick;
This ol' cocaine 'bout to make me sick --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
Cocaine's for horses, an' it's not for men,
Doctors say they kill you, but it doesn't say when --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
Hey, baby, ya better come here quick;
This old cocaine 'bout to make me sick --
Cocaine, all around my brain.
- Traditional
So Louisiana Chick and I are in a motel room and we traded some smoke for blow and its 2 am and she is trying to move the furniture around for the third time to make it right and talking about the war and it has to be over oil right, I mean, why else would we be there, and Nixon said he'd end the war but he didn't and wouldn't the TV be better over here than there.
Me I get all quiet on cocaine and just shrug.
She looks at the couch, let's move it over here that will make the room right, man am I glad there is no fridge in the room and we do another line though neither of us really needs to and she catches her breath and says what's the kinkiest thing you ever did in bed she asks me and I say sleep and we both laugh there will be no sleep tonight and the clock is moving so damn slow.
"Why don't we lay out lines on a mirror and have sex and do the lines while we have sex" I say and wow she says and in 2 seconds she's naked and we're both sniffing and I don't even think there is room for more coke in our nose but here we go she does a line as I explore every inch of her pussy and I'm precise and not one crease or fold is unlicked.
My turn and I do a line and she starts at my toes and licks and nibbles her way up my leg, the inner part of my leg and I'm covered in goosebumps she hasn't even made it to my dick yet when I see her pick up a line of coke with the biz card of hers and carefully pour the powder on my dick only part of it rolls off because it isn't ground up enough and she catches it and then licks the coke off. My cock that is.
She holds up the mirror and I do a line and her mouth is warm and wet and I close my eyes.....
Music. We should have music on!
Cut on the radio I mumble and she gets up and does but there's some preacher on so she changes the channel
American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman, she gonna mess your mind
American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman gonna mess your mind
Say A,
Say M,
Say E,
Say R,
Say I,
C,
Say A,
N,
American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don't come hangin' around my door
I don't wanna see your face no more
I got more important things to do
Than spend my time growin' old with you
,
American woman, listen what I say.
American woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don't come knockin' around my door
Don't wanna see your shadow no more
Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, I said get away
American woman, listen what I say.
American woman, said get away
American woman, listen what I say
Don't come hangin' around my door
Don't wanna see your face no more
I don't need your war machines
I don't need your ghetto scenes
Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be.
Go, gotta get away, gotta get away
Now go go go
Gonna leave you, woman
Gonna leave you, woman
Bye-bye
Bye-bye
Bye-bye
Bye-bye
You're no good for me
I'm no good for you
Gonna look you right in the eye.
Tell you what I'm gonna do
You know I'm gonna leave
You know I'm gonna go
You know I'm gonna leave
You know I'm gonna go, woman
I'm gonna leave, woman
Goodbye, American woman
Goodbye, American chick
Goodbye, American broad ...
(Bachman-Cummings-Kale-Peterson)
What the fuck is that I say. We are blown away by this song and we fall into each others arms, stopping only to do lines and I leave my autograph on her face,
I try to sleep but she's moving the table light and the chair.
Got to get it just right. She asks me where we're going and I say Clovis, New Mexico.
Posted at 02:49 pm by Psychomike
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Friday, December 12, 2008
RIP BETTIE PAGE, ARTHUR C. CLARKE, FORREST J. ACKERMAN.
Remembering Bestoink Dooley, too!
I think there are two ways of knowing that you are getting older. One is that you can see the sign in bars that says IF YOU WERE BORN BEFORE THIS DATE AND YEAR WE WON'T SERVE YOU and you remember whom you were sleeping with that date, the other is that those older than you that influenced your life start dying.
Forrest J. Ackerman, Arthur C.Clarke and Bettie Page have all passed away in 2008. One published monster mags, one began his writing career writing in pulp magazines, one posed for pictures that the government ordered destroyed danced in burlesque and posed for fetish photography. These three seem to have nothing in common but they do, each did what was considered to be "trash" at the time they began. Each would be elevated far beyond that dismissal before they died.
Television in the 1960's had become a classroom for film. The Three Stooges shorts once seen at a movie theater every several months were now on TV on a daily basis. Horror movies starring Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi and many others were everywhere, often on TV shows with horror hosts. In Atlanta we had Bestoink Dooley whose show followed the news and he would often interrupt the weather to clown around with the weatherman.
I would wait for my parents to fall asleep and get up quietly to watch Bestoink, I was only caught once when I fell asleep during FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN and my parents caught me n the couch the next morning! I would meet Bestoink, aka George Ellis at the Festival Cinema and was able to see Andy Warhol's CHELSEA GIRLS, Kenneth Anger's FIREWORKS and I dated one of the beautiful girls that worked there. She had to audition for Russ Meyer and I met Russ for the first time. Years later I was the judge and host at The Limelight for a LEAVE IT TO CLEAVAGE contest and reminded him of our first meting. He was stunned, and remembered me, but thought she was baby sitting me. He took me to the bar and ordered me three Bombay and tonics in a row and said any kid who was dating girls like that at 12 he had his hat off to! He would come back several years later for his birthday party hosted by myself,girls from an all girl band called HOT HEELS, and co-host Roger Ebert!
You can read Roger's intro to the event and my onstage interview with Russ here:
I was being exposed to horror and science fiction movies and wanted to know more about them, who the people were in them, anything I could. I even had the Aurora monster models that I would paint and glue together. My room was becoming a shrine to monster movies. I bought a six sheet poster for THE MOLE PEOPLE made for billboards and that covered one wall of my room. My models were on shelves and tabletops.
Funny how my love for horror films would lead me to the 60's film rebellion from the underground here and to the terrific foreign films coming out at the same.
Then I saw a copy of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, and discovered not only the back stories to the movies I loved ( the 1933 KING KONG remains my favorite film), but started promoting the films ad actors myself. I hand printed a fanzine called FLORES' INFERNO and would rent it out for a nickle for fellow students to read.
There is no way to know how many parents took one look at FAMOUS MONSTERS and threw the magazine out. The kids who read it however, would often go on to create films and books. John Landis,Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and many others would acknowledge his influence on them. Beneath the puns was a wealth of information, respect and love for the films considered trash by the general public and serious critics.
For the longest time horror and sci-fi films were only came out for kids n the summer and Halloween. Ackerman began the change so that today film subjects once considered trash now dominate the film market year round, with huge budgets and major stars. Here's a toast to the Ackermonster.
Arthur C. Clarke started in the penny a word pulp market writing for magazines like ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, GALAXY and others. I loved his writing with its almost mystical approach to technology. Clarke himself was an atheist, but for many hippies watching 2001 he had made a scientific advance come across like a mystical trip.
I was a student at the Art Institute and was living in Hyde Park. I learned he was going to be at the University of Chicago to speak and after his lecture on satellites I asked him about 2001. He quickly dismissed me, and said he wasn't there to talk about it and he was tired of talking about it. The students in the hall applauded, and when the audience applause and laughter died down I persisted. What did I have to lose? I sat in on classes with Milton Friedman and others, no one noticed I wasn't a student!
I said I had a question that was not about the film in general, but an idea in the film that I felt was relevant today.
That got his attention. The hall grew silent. He relented.
"In the film, the Russians and the U.S. are shown to be allies though you get the feeling they still are wary of each other. How do you think we can reach this point, and do you think we will?", I boldly asked.
Mr. Clarke immediately apologized to me twice. Twice. He then said that was the best question he ever received on the film. Every single student in the room turned around and looked at me.
Then he declined to answer the question due to the political climate in America under Nixon, but he would answer me after the lecture if I'd come forward. After the lecture I shook his hand and he told me to read an article, which turned out to be about how we would become reluctant allies after the fall of the Soviet Union!
For months after students and Professors would come up to me and congratulate me on an outstanding question.
A penny a word writer, whose writing was sometimes adapted for radio on the show X-1, ends up speaking at the U of C. A toast to Arthur C. Clarke.
The range of emotions I have about Bettie are entangled in personal feelings and fan feelings.
I first saw her picture when was 13 at a comic book/ junk shop called Cantrell's in Atlanta. Here she was, tied up and in her undies looking directly at me . I would put Bettie in three of my plays, THE BETTY PAGE STORY, BETTIE PAGE UNCENSORED, and THE GOOD TIME GIRLS.
The first play was THE BETTY PAGE STORY. She had become a recluse and I had only seen 8 plays in my life, so when the producers at The Prop Theater approached me to do a show I jumped at the chance. I had a few story meetings, which ended with Scott going off to buy cocaine, and me leaving. The auditions were to be held at the theatre. What I didn't know was the actors were there hoping to be paid for their last show which had been a huge hit starring Tony Fitzpatrick.
Scott showed up coked up and suddenly announced everyone there was in the show, no audition needed. I was in shock. There were over 20 people there! The actors fell for his ruse as did I, and before we cold finish the script I had loaned him several months rent, for his apartment, and money for a huge gas bill at the theatre. ( He had used kerosene headache causing machines to heat the place!). And money for rent at the theatre. Meanwhile it was all going to drugs, as presumably the last shows money had.
Two weeks before the show opened Tony Fitzpatrick, a terrific artist in town, warned me to not do the show. After 4 months work and thousands paid out, it was kind of late to tell me.
There was no way I'd ever get any of that money back. The show hadn't even opened yet. One night an actor who had done a speedball with Scott, passed out on the couch in the lobby. Scott was sweating and shaking and told me I had to go onstage. To the shock of the cast I entered the stage and performed.
Penn and Teller had flown in for the show. The met us for dinner after, though Scott was too high to go, and they congratulated me for my performance!
Our agreement had called for Scott to pay the actors, the money was going for drugs instead. I got in a fight with him, but I had realized the only people Scott was paying were the musicians and tech people, the actors he had fully bamboozled. So I called the techies, told them what was going on and they refused to work unless the actors got paid. And that I was at the theatre as well. An apology came within minutes and Scott left before the actors got there. It happened quick. The actors never knew what happened.
During rehearsal Scott was awful. I had to figure out a way to get around him and his pompous partner. His partner would lecture the cast on sleeping with each other, but was banging one actress and trying to get others in the show as well. I'd had enough of these clowns and decided to pull a prank. I followed the lead of a fellow prankster JB, and got my hands on a urine specimen jar, label and typed Scott's name on the label, poured apple juice in it, a doctor's name and placed it Jonathon's fridge.
The name I used was Boutrous- Boutrous, the then head of the U.N., I knew actors didn't follow politics and they wouldn't get it.
A couple of days later I got a frantic call from Jonathon, was Scottie OK and why did he leave his urine in his fridge! I played dumb, they decided it had to be one of the actors. For three weeks they did nothing at rehearsal but try to find the culprits, often skipping the rehearsals.
Finally during tech week they called everyone together in a circle and Scott and Jonathon stood in the center. They thought they had guessed who did it. They held up the bottle looking at a confused actor and Scotty asked, "What's this?", I stepped forward, opened the bottle and drank from it. Then I said, "It tastes like urine". I laughed, they looked shocked, I explained the prank to the cast.
Some years later, and after I learned Scott had used me as the excuse not to pay actors as he had his former girlfriend to not pay Tony and the others in his previous show (to this day actors ask me when they will be paid for Bettie, I tell them to ask Scotty and also ask him when I'm getting back my money for his drugs, I mean rent). They never get it.
That play however became a critics hit. It would also destroy an 11 year loving relationship, but that story I'll get back to. Including the story of my drunken late night call to Penn that would scare him. He doesn't drink, and has never been dunk. Never do a late night drunk call to a tee totaller! More on that later.
Walking on North Avenue one day Scott ran out and hugged me. I didn't know whether to hit him and the first thing he said to me was we had to work together. This time would it be different. I could pick the play, direct it alone, pick the cast. He loved my work and wanted me to do more.
This was very odd as Scott and Jonathon were bad mouthing me all over the place.
He wanted to do a meeting right then and there, but I had a meeting to go to.
On the walk back I saw a frantic Scott, pleading with a sheriff as he was evicted from the theatre.
A couple of years later a Hollywood pal of his would have Scott pick up a rented car to drive to get him from a set. He warned Scott not to use the car to buy drugs but Scott drove off to find drugs, got wasted and was in a car accident leaving the actor with a huge bill for the car. Call it carma!
My Bettie experiences will be coming up a lot including my phone call with her, Playboy putting me on cable and in the magazine, and the actress I discovered in a brothel, the botching of the movie by an egotistic producer- there is much more coming. But for now, a toast to Bettie Page, a fetish model and burlyq dancer whose obituary ended up in the New York Times!
Life is like that.
Posted at 11:26 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, December 21, 2008
VIETNAM DOMINATED EVERYTHING, JANE FONDA
Ladies and gentlemen I'd like you to meet our cast, I think you'll enjoy these mementos of an era. Merry Christmas and enjoy.:
Bonnie and Clyde, Bardot, Serge Gainsbourg
Riots
Night of The Living Dead
Vietnam dominated everything
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The Allman Brothers, with Duane
Jerry Lewis, here with drummer Buddy Rich
Protests began
Aleister Crowley
Robert McNamara
Rosemary's Baby
LSD, Timothy Leary
Madame Ngo Ninh Nhu gives a startling response to the Buddhist monks' self-immolations to protest the Diem government in 1963.
her bio
The Wild Bunch
Music before riots
Bob Hope
Films showing up on TV after not being released for years suddenly grabbed audiences and re-started many careers. Then theaters opened that only did revivals of old films- and college walls were adorned with The Three Stooges, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Groucho and oh yeah,Raquel Welch in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. But that's a different story
Joey Heatherton
Jane Fonda (first person I cover below)
Chicago riots 1968
Westmoreland
Barbra Steisand
Protest movement
Introducing Jane Fonda
Quote:
You don't know America if you don't know the Jane Fonda cult. Or rather, the anti-Fonda cult. At places where soldiers or former soldiers congregate, there'll be stickers of her likeness on the urinals; one is an invitation to symbolic rape: Fonda in her 1980s 'work-out' costume, her legs splayed, pudenda at the bulls-eye. Every night at lights-out midshipmen at the US Naval Academy cry out 'Goodnight, bitch!' in her honour. They've learned, Carol Burke writes in her study of military folklore, Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane and the High-and-Tight, what you learn at all the service academies: 'that being a real warrior and hating Jane Fonda are synonymous.'[*]When Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built on the Washington Mall, well-organised veterans who criticised it as the 'gook monument' – Lin is Chinese-American – were allowed to open their own kiosks nearby. These became the cult's temples, the places to buy its sacraments and phylacteries; bumper stickers, for example, saying 'Jane Fonda: John Kerry with Tits'. Phyllis Schlafly and Tom Wolfe have both described the memorial wall as a 'monument to Jane Fonda'.
A set of urban legends has sprung up around her visit to Hanoi in the summer of 1972: a prisoner of war, ordered by his captors to describe his 'lenient and humane' treatment to the visiting actress, spat on her instead and was beaten almost into blindness; prisoners secretly gave her their social security numbers to prove their existence to the outside world – Fonda turned the numbers over to their captors and men were supposed to have died from the beatings that followed. The reliability of such tales is suggested by a piece that appeared in the Washington Times, a right-wing daily, in 1989: a former pow, Air Force Major Fred Cherry, recalled Fonda's voice ringing out over the prison public address system during an 'extended torture siege' in 1967. Fonda didn't speak out against the war until 1970.
The cult matured in the 1980s when America finally began to accept that it had lost a war which hadn't been worth fighting in the first place. UNQUOTE
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n22/perl01_.html
I don't like Jane, but only because she quit making hot movies like BARBARELLA. I did meet her in her very isolated world (she had stopped communication with men and was with a female folk singer) and I'll get to that eventually.
When she made her stupid trip to Nam she betrayed the soldiers alright- but not the ones you think. Have friends who really hate Jane Fonda?- email them this quiz:
#1: DO YOU BELIEVE WE FOUGHT THE VIETNAM WAR TO WIN? If you say no, guess what? THAT MAKES YOU A PROTESTER TOO!
#2: Barry Goldwater called LBJ out. He said that we were going to Nam and LBJ was lying when he said we weren't. The groundwork was already done. The press attacked Goldwater for calling LBJ a liar. LBJ ran an ad implying Goldwater would nuke Nam. America voted for the peace candidate. LBJ then engineered a fake attack at the Gulf of Tonkin TWICE to send troops in. IS IT OK FOR A PRESIDENT TO FAKE AN ATTACK TO START A WAR? If you say no, guess what? YOU ARE A PROTESTER.
#3. Vietnamization had already impacted he war when Jane went. Less troops were being sent in, and soon torture and murder had stopped in the camps to help along the talks, REMEMBER? ( By the way, We didn't "leave POW's behind", we now know through KGB documents after the fall of Russia, pilots were taken to Russia, interrogated and killed). By the way, LBJ and Nixon knew Russians were involved but never told us. Do any of you have stickers of LBJ and Nixon in your urinal? I mean, please!
#4. Goldwater said if we couldn't win within 1 year he would withdraw all troops because Vietnam had no significance for us.
What would America be like if in 1965 if we had left Nam, again in 1965? WHY AREN'T YOU MAD AT LBJ? Instead of some dumb actress?
#5. When Jane went to Nam it was 60 days before her film F.T.A. was to come out. She had toured near military bases and drawn TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS. Soldiers were being sentenced to jail for publishing anti-war papers, holding sit ins and demonstrations. All of them wanted that movie to show what they were doing. After Jane went to Nam, the film was withdrawn by the film studio, and those men's stories were never told. F.T.A. was never released, and those soldiers who risked jail to speak up were betrayed.
#6. What I am about to write is hated by the left and the right. Yet it pertains to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as much as it does Nam. VIETNAM WASN'T OURS TO WIN OR LOSE. Got it? ONLY THE VIETNAMESE COULD WIN OR LOSE NAM. Because we have never faced this, we are repeating the same mistakes all over again.
Posted at 02:15 pm by Psychomike
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Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Buddy Holly Led To Me In Jail!
WELCOME TO CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO
How my love of Buddy Holly landed me in jail!
Well, we ran out of cocaine before we got to New Mexico and she split,
So I was alone and thumbing at night outside some small town in Texas when I saw a billboard that said YOU ARE ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY, with a guy on horse in KKK robes holding a burning torch. tt was getting dark, so I decided I shouldn't keep hitching once it got dark. If I didn't get a ride I'd wait for the sun to start hitching again.
A car with 4 short haired guys pulled over and said for me to get in so I did. The driver said he was glad to see me, because there were two cars filled with drunk rednecks with baseball bats looking for the hippie hitchhiking. I asked why, and they told me they were going to "do me in". Sure enough, within minutes one car filled with guys zoomed by honking their horn and screaming their war chant.
This was serious.
As we drove the guys gave me the money out of their pockets and I realized they had given me enough for bus fare to Clovis. I asked if they could take me to the bus station in the next town and they said there was a Greyhound bus stop there so I relaxed. It turned out the guys in the car had all tried to grow their hair long and had been beaten up and forced to get haircuts- by the local cops!
We got to the bus station without incident and I said goodbye and thanks to them for saving my life, walked in with 7 hours to spare before the bus and crashed on a seat.
When I woke up the bus was a half hour away and I got ready to board. I got on board and immediately spotted three hippies, I went to the back where they were and struck up a conversation. They were all headed to Clovis, too, and the girl with long brown hair was with them and she was single. The plan was they would get a hotel room to split and I was invited. From hitchhiking to bus riding and hotel arrivin' certainly seemed a major change from being beaten up with baseball bats. The girl and I hit it off and talked all the way to Clovis.
There was only one hotel in town we discovered and started walking from the station to the hotel where I had already called dibbs on first shower. We were at the corner across from the hotel and I couldn't wait to get inside and four police cars pulled up in front of us with their sirens on.
I looked behind me to see what the commotion was all about and realized- we were the commotion. Before I knew it, each of us was separated and placed into the cars. I would never see them again.
There was a problem. I was 15. That meant I could be sent to juvenile detention, but at midnight, which was 2 1/2 hours away, I turned 16 and by Georgia law could be on my own. I had to wait until midnight.
Two cops had me in a room asking me what I was doing in Clovis. I told them but they didn't seem to know how to respond. How could a hippie like Buddy Holly music? One cop picked up my 96 pound frame and casually tossed me against the wall while the other cop played good cop asking me to tell them what they needed to know. I refused to answer half of their questions waiting for the clock to tick.
Being slammed around, threatened, cajoled for 2 1/2 hours was not easy. However I guess I learned I could stand up to police pressure and brutality. This would serve me well when I would move to Chicago and join the anti-war movement.
Finally laying on the floor I looked up and saw the clock read 12:10 am. I was now 16. Actually I had been by Georgia time for an hour. I wanted to make sure. I gave my dad's number and they called, only to discover they had let me go awhile ago. I was no runaway.
The rage that they had displayed for over two hours gave way to shocked, stunned silence. I had stood up to them for over two hours and did not break.
I had turned 16 in jail.
One said they would have to run a computer check on me to make sure I wasn't wanted anywhere and they took me to a cell. Next to my cell was a girl who told me she had been caught after curfew a third time and was being sent to juvenile for the next 6 years! I realized I had two close calls within 24 hours. I still had my lucky quarter as the cops hadn't taken my money away from me, the only money I had when I left Atlanta to head to New Orleans. A quarter!
For 2 1/2 days I sat in jail waiting to be cleared, finally a cop came out and took me to his car without a word. When I got in my backpack was in the seat next to him. We drove in silence to the expressway, he got out with my knapsack and dumped its contents all over the side of the street. He then opened my side of the car and let me out, saying, "Tell all your hippie friends not to come to Clovis, New Mexico". He sauntered back to the drivers side and took off.
You have been told.
Posted at 09:23 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, February 12, 2009
As the country celebrates Lincoln there is an easy way to split
the propaganda from the facts.
Do they mention Jefferson Davis?
Imagine a history of World War 2 that never mentions Hitler. Imagine
a history of World War 2 that does not mention what Germany or Japan
thought.
This is the giveaway, if they gush on and on about Lincoln but never
mention his adversary or what the South thought, you are dealing with
propaganda.
Here is the speech I gave at the College - consider it the half of
the history that has been hidden.
For those of you who grew up in Atlanta in the 1960's, you will find many memories here.
http://tinyurl.com/buhd94
http://lincolntruth.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-02_cy-2008_m-02_d-11_y-2008_o-0.html
Posted at 09:53 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, March 05, 2009
CALIFORNIA BABYLON
After I gathered together my clothes, toothbrush, and other essentials off the street that the police had dumped out after releasing me from jail and stuffed them into my knapsack a car pulled up alongside me and asked me where I was going.
Where was I going? I don't know why but I blurted out California and he told me to hop in, he could take me to the part of the expressway going to California. After ten minutes he did, he had asked no questions on the way, and I hopped out with a "Thanks, man". And for the next half hour I waited for any car to come by.
Finally a mobile home pulled up. On the side was painted a cross and Jesus, and a middle aged woman with no make-up on poked her head out the window. She asked where I was going and I said California, I heard a man's voice beside her say hop in so I did. He was older, his hands grasped the wheel. She did most of the talking, about how they went to mobile home areas and set up the car like a church. For the next few days I travelled with them, stopping at mobile home stops for showers, getting food along the road. Finally we hit California and they give me $20 and ask where I want to be left off.I wanted to go to LA and check out the scene, so they let me off on the road to catch a ride. They never brought up religion to me once. When they held service, I took a shower.
Turns out he'd hitchhiked after the Korean War on the West Coast, so we swapped adventures in those days together.
Night was falling, and a car finally pulled over for me. Well, we went over a hill and there was an ocean of lights, down the hill, up again, another ocean of lights. And it just went on and on. It was the biggest city I'd ever seen. As we approached the hippie part of town I was shocked. On each block, 50 to 100 kids were hitchhiking. I had never seen so many hitchhikers in my life. He left me off where there was a sign saying FREE FOOD but there was a line of 200 people waiting for food. This wasn't fun. This was a giant ghetto. A youth ghetto. Every other person was asking me if I had a place to crash! How was I going to find a place to crash, gather my thoughts and get the hell out of there?
That's when I saw my angel. I saw someone I knew! He was a roadie for bands in Atlanta and I had seen him hundreds of times, but what was his name? I approached him, he looked up, smiled and said, "Flash what are you doing here?", and started laughing and hugging me. I told him I just got in and was looking for a place to clean up and crash at. He invited me to his girlfriends house for the night and told me we'd leave for his home in Laurel Canyon, and we'd take Route 1. Sounded cool to me. When you have no plan, the person with one rules.
So we drive to her place and he tells me his new nickname is Bear and he is talking about how dinosaurs use to walk where we were driving and I believe it. I look outside and see giant light poles and yeah, it's easy to imagine dinosaurs where those lights are.
We get to his girlfriends place and as we walk up to the house she rushes over from the porch and hugs him and starts making out with him. He asks where eveyone is and she says in the house so off we go. I remark that he has a hot girlfriend and he says, "That ain't her".
He opens the door and there a couple of babes, a black guy and a guy rolling joints on the floor. The guy rolling joints is white, he has a suede jacket with a fringe that has filled his lap, the black guy doesn't have a Afro, those were styled, his hair is more wild ala Hendrix or myself. The two girls are wearing hip huggers that reveal their bellies, one has a tye die shirt that is above her belly button, one is wearing a leather jacket that that falls midway on her body and a man's shirt she has tied up and knotted.
He introduces me, kisses the two girls in a way so that I still don't know which one is his girlfriend, and sit on the floor by the guy rolling joints.
Now this is more like it. We start smoking and the black guy is talking about black power and the girl is talking about how women should have the same rights as men and somebody asks me what I think as I take a smoke and blurt out that we are never leaving Vietnam.
Over pot, we had just merged all the points of the day into one conversation. Bear got some Ripple wine out and suddenly we're talking about everything that was wrong in the world from cops with attitudes to the straight world being blind to the war, to women being treated badly by society I MEAN EVERYTHING.
Well Bear heads over to the kitchen and I follow to ask him which one of the girls was his girlfriend and he said, "She ain't here yet. So you can pick up any one you want".
I was starting to dig California. I guess there are a lot of cool people everywhere, you just have to find them.
FOOTNOTE:
WILD IN THE STREETS MOVIE TRAILER
Posted at 06:14 pm by Psychomike
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Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Mad World Of Severn Darden
THE BRAVEST COMEDIAN
Hyde Park in Chicago was a place for early progressives, leftists, communists and those who believed in integration. The University of Chicago, known as the "the place where fun goes to die" has an architectural style that reminds one of how all architecture would look if the Church and state were one. In the 1950's it was an area surrounded by poverty and one tread carefully away from the college. There was an incredible Chinese restaurant on 63rd Street but one did not walk there. There were blues clubs on 47th street, real blues clubs not tourist traps, but one drove to those as well. There was Jimmy's, a bar where students tried to relax but more often than not chess games and discussions of philosophy dominated. The Point was a spot you could go to- and study while looking at a hill and the lake. The Medici which everyone in Hyde Park mispronounced, MED-E-CHI instead of the Italian family name. It was a gallery and coffee shop at the time. The Museum of Science and Industry, a building left over from the World's Fair of 1893 had a German U-Boat and working coal mine in it. That was just about it. For 90% of the students at the school the work was difficult and grueling. Then there is that lucky 10% who seemed to float through school - who went to Jimmy's to drink, who turned lectures into high comedy and pulled pranks while everyone around them toiled.
No one before or since pulled pranks and got away with them the way Severn Darden did. No one.
The buildings invoke a a Medieval feel, so Darden got himself a cloak ala Sherlock Holmes and marched through the campus. Even among the eccentrics of Hyde Park, Darden stood out.
He had decided to find ways into every building on the campus. This was not easy to do, as the campus police force rivalled Chicago's in size, and guards were in every building. Where to start? Severn had come to Chicago via Vermont, but was born and raised in New Orleans. His dad ran for State's Attorney and promised that he would treat all races equally- which outraged the Klan. Up until then, a black witness could not testify against a white man or woman. This caused many death threats to the family, and might help explain why Severn was sent to school in Vermont. His father was given an award by the NAACP when they discovered he meant what he had said.
Rockerfeller Chapel! Perfect! His cloak on, Severn made his way into the building through an open window, and crept by the sleeping guard.
Into this imposing Chapel he crept armed only with a flashlight looking for his way of showing the campus he had penetrated this structure. The organ! The massive organ that could be heard throughout the campus!
He found it, and sat down to play. Quietly at first, then loud and booming. The sleeping guard awoke, and took a minute to realize what was happening. The sound of the organ was now echoing through the building and out into the Hyde Park night. The guard pulled his gun and cautiously moved towards the organ area. Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, he came upon Severn in cloak playing a real life Phantom Of The Opera. As the light hit Severn he darted from the organ with the guard in hot pursuit. Running into the chapel he flung himself onto the altar and shouted,
SANCTUARY!
This startled the guard who was confused and did not know what to do as Severn escaped into the night.
Next he picked a target that was considered impenetrable. The girls showers!
Dressed in his cloak he found a way into the building, pass the guards and wandered into the showers where the girls in mass were taking their shower.
EXCUSE ME, IS THIS THE WAY TO CLARK STREET ?
He said deadpan and the girls went from screams to laughter. He got away with it!
There was an expression still in use from early America, "Is the game worth the candle?", it was from the days before electricity when you had to use a candle, a rare item, to entertain after dark. Severn carried a candle on him at all times, should some stuffy Prof or dismissive student say the line to him, he pulled the candle out! There was no comeback. There was no way to top him.
Severn had topped every prank at the College. It was time to find a new victim. He chose Bard College and noted the Dean's house was atop a slope. He gathered some students together, and they built a crucifix , got him a loin cloth and hoisted him on the hill. Because of the slope you couldn't see him until you came up the hill. He was crucified in front of the Dean's house! The Dean expelled him for that one. Severn looked up at him and spoke, but not to apologize,
THAT'S TOO BAD I WAS GOING TO WRITE YOU A CHECK!
Fearless. Improvisational. Quick witted. Eccentric. He bought a Rolls Royce when no one collected them, a 1929 one and drove around with his cloak on.
He decided to become an actor. But he was on a path to meet Del Close.
(Thanks to Encounters and Reflections: Conversations with Seth Benardete for prank information).
Posted at 10:23 am by Psychomike
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