|
 |
|
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
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
Permalink
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A Pause for Ferris Bueller
SLAMMING INTO TODAY WITH FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF
"Mike, to choose the artists life isn't an answer. It's a mountain to climb."
- KENNETH ANGER
"The modern day artist refuses to die."
- ERIC SATIE
"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
- FERRIS BUELLER
A confession dear reader. Writing a blog is much easier than writing a script. Here I can rant. A script? Well, I follow Paul Linebarger's STASM formula. Paul is one of my heroes. He was an OSS agent, the precursor to CIA. His classic must read Intel book, PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE comes in 2 editions, up to World War 2 and Korea. Paul wrote science fiction under the name Cordwinder Smith without CIA's knowledge, and romance novels under the name Frederick Forest. His book RIA about rebels, gun and money running- well you can look at the name of the book and guess what struggle and group it's about. The CIA never knew he was weaving his experiences into fiction.
The STASM formula is as follows: SUBJECT MATTER, TIME FRAME, AUDIENCE, SOURCES and MISSION. What is my subject? The time frame to get it done? Who is the audience for the work? What are my sources, my resources to draw on? Finally, what is the goal of the piece, how does it fit in with my overall mission? Now, taking military iideas and applying them to theatre isn't really far fetched. The two worlds have much in common. Though I doubt many writers ask themselves these questions before they write.
A director wears a mask to rally the actors, so does a General with their troops. You can have the General like Pattton who is aloof from his men, or Omar Bradley who will have beers with them. A director like Ceil B. DeMille who struck fear into his cast and crew, or one like Clint Eastwood who doesn't even like to use the word CUT or ACTION on a set to keep his actors at ease.A general doesn't want his soldiers to die on the field. A director doesn't want his actors to die onstage. The rules of war and theatre are pretty much interchangable ( substitute the word MARKETING with PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE and it all starts to fall into place).
A blog like this is more like a diary. The STASM formula does not fit. Here I can driift from period to period, as I do tonight.
Del called me excited that he had a part in FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF which was shooting in Highland Park, a beautiful and rich part of Chicago.
I was living in a highrise at 1120 N. LaSalle that was formerly occupied by a victim of the Tylenol murders (so the rent was cut in half compared to the other units in the building). Del was across the street and behind buildings from Second City.
I stepped into the open door and the wall of pot smoke and Del was excited.
" Michael!' he exclaimed as I entered, " I'm doing a film about you!" and I had no idea what he was talking about.
He handed me a joint that was burning and walked over to his kitchen table where the script sat on his table. I had no idea how to take what he had just said and asked hm instead what part he had.
"Not a big role, but I talk about irony!" he laughed. We'd actually talked about the role of irony in entertainment and how it seemed to be growing. So then I asked him what he meant by 'it was a film about me'.
"It's you with your own place at 12. Teaching before you graduated at the Art Institute,. the women you've known, the luck plane! The Subgenius luck plane that saves you at the last minute over and over." and he broke into more laughter.
He told me I'd just have to see the film when it came out. I don't remember why I didn't, but over the years I never saw it. Until tonight.
Chicago in summer has film screenings in the parks and tonight by the Historical Society was an open air screeniing of FERRIS. So i walked over, found a seat and watched the film with a crowded and young audience. Most were babies when the film came out. I watched and loved the film. It was great to see Del in it. I loved the scenes of Highland Park and the city.
When the final credits ended i walked two blocks over to where Del use to live. i knew he would have liked the film being shown to a packed field in his old backyard.
As I walked to the crash pad I started thinking. You see, i had been living in a house wiith South Africans in a Mexican hood, and someone dropped a dime and wanted the blacks out. Inspectors had shown up and we all had to go with just 7 days notice. Illegal Mexicans calling to complain about an illegal boarding house because blacks were there. Welcome to Chicago!
This caught me offguard. Here I was working with a book company and author to come up with a treatment for a play on Crowley, plus being in a play every week, moving was not part of the plan. A pal was leaving for Asia, and let me stay at his place. For the last 6 weeks I've been in a highrise, with balcony, and indoor swimming pool! Not bad for being homeless! Next week I move into a raw space for a week and a half, then into a newly re-modeled pad. All by luck.
As I walked the three blocks from the museum to the crashpad i could hear Del laughing and saying the film was about me. I laughed outloud, because now I got the comment.
Posted at 01:12 am by Psychomike
Permalink
Friday, October 02, 2009
CALIFORNIA ON FIRE!
I was looking at the picture of the girl with long blonde hair holding a guitar who had come to represent for me the college students holding sit-ins against the Vietnam War. It is difficult to explain these actions, but luckily, there is news footage from the era:
Here she was in the photo occupying the Dean's office, strumming her guitar, a student at the female Harvard- Dartmouth. I was transfixed. I looked up just in time to see black smoke rolling across the backyard of the crash pad. I went outside and there was a line of bushes on fire! I ran inside and dropped the magazine on the couch yelling for Bear. He came out of his bedroom and took a look and casually put his shoes on. The next thing I knew he was hosing down the fire and I was carrying buckets of water from the kitchen. As I poured the water on the fire I asked Bear how often these fires happened. He yawned and said all the time.
I asked what happens when no one is home when these fires combust and he said, you hope the fire doesn't hit the house.
I had loved the canyon. The beauty of it. The mellow moods of the women...... but I had noticed the hundreds lining up hitchhiking. The hundreds of panhandlers in the city. I thought I had found a home- but fighting fires was too much. That night we drove to Topango Canyon and watched Canned Heat play.
I was missing Atlanta and it was time to go home. Bear told me he'd get me a plane ticket and I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. I flew over the states I had hitched through. Thinking about all I had seen on the road. That it ended in fire and heat made me chuckle.
I got back to the city and was happy to see Atlanta again. I had been in jail for my birthday, escaped rednecks with baseball bats, got wasted and escaped the cop sweep in New Orleans, travelled with a car church to trailer parks and I had made it. Not bad for a 16 year old.
Like Ulysses I had returned home. It was daylight on Peachtree and Peyote saw me and yelled out FLASH! We hugged and talked about Big Sur, Topango Canyon, Route 1 and all the beauty. I didn't even mention the more thrilling aspects of my journey. He mentioned a record company was looking for a guy to work in the marketing department in their office out in the burbs, and having written for the Bird that would help me get the job. They handled rock bands like the Stones, The Who, Moody Blues, John Mayall and country music acts. They knew how to promote country, but rock was new to them. He gave me a number to call. I was about to change my life yet again. I went to a payphone and called the number. A voice answered on the other end.
"Hello, Decca records".
Posted at 03:46 pm by Psychomike
Permalink
Thursday, October 29, 2009
SubGenius Devivals 2009/2010
We interrupt this surf with an important message!
THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS CHICAGO CLENCH BEGINS A WEEKLY DEVIVAL ASSAULT ON THE PINK BOYS AND THE CONSPIRACY!
There are those who claim The Church Of The Subgenius is a joke. If it is, at least it's a joke you can believe in!
Or you saw one of the many Chicago devivals at nightclubs and bars around the city featuring Rev. Del Close, Pope Mike Flores, Rev. Ivan Stang. The Church is back with weekly sermons... who will survive? What will be left of them? You can be like the NORMALS and look away, or you can prepare yourself for a life changing experience.... yet again! What other religion promises the flying saucers will remove you from the planet when the end times wipe earth out, or TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK? Dear friends just take a peek at what Chicago's fallible Pope has in store:
DEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The devivals will be at 8PM at THE LIAR'S CLUB, 1665 W Fullerton free parking both sides of the street. $6 You must Be 21 or over. 773- 665- 1110 but no reservations needed.
Sat Nov 28th THE QUEST FOR SLACK: Scream Out over holidaze with relatives, learn the story of "Bob", the 1982 World SubCon Tribulations
Sat Dec 5th A JOYFUL NOISE Everyone bring odd instruments to play, surprise Chicago musicians to show up
Sat Dec 12 SEX MIRACLES AND YOU 24 hour marriages, reverse healings, sex with aliens!
Sat Dec 19 PUT THE X BACK IN XMAS! The fallible Pope of Chicago opens a can of whup ass on the holidaze season! Can I hear a hell yeah!
You know, the conspiracy has THOUSANDS of nuclear weapons. The Church only has one! And I forgot where I put it when I was drunk but it has to be someplace around here... I think I left it near my keys so when I find those... ANYWAY prepare yourself for the word of "Bob", prepare yourself for the battle for slack! PRAISE "BOB"!
Posted at 10:49 pm by Psychomike
Permalink
|
|
|
