TRIPPIN' ON FREE LOVE BLUES
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Shes walking down the street
Blind to every eye she meets
Do you think youll be the guy
To make the queen of the angels sigh?
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
She holds her head so high
Like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song
Sidewalk crouches at her feet
Like a dog that begs for something sweet
Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello
I want you
Hello
I need my baby
Hello, hello, hello, hello
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Shes walking down the street
Blind to every eye she meets
Do you think youll be the guy
To make the queen of the angels sigh?
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Wont you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
She holds her head so high
Like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song
Sidewalk crouches at her feet
Like a dog that begs for something sweet
Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello
I want you
Hello
I need my baby
Hello, hello, hello, hello
- Jim Morrison, The Doors
For a kid loose in the free love era, there is no sense all this will end. It is a perpetual party. Atlantis Rising was the "head" shop on Peachtree Street that I'd sit in front of, selling my Great Speckled Bird. When you walked in the shop there were bootlegs on the floor, barrels of coffee beans, day glo posters and blacklights. Pipes and rolling papers of all colors and images of every kind on the papers. Some like the flag. Some like draft cards. I had the poster that matched astrology signs with sex positions on my wall
and a poster of W.C. Fields.
Peter Pan was the hot girl on the strip of the moment and I saw her walk by with her giirlfriends who worked at the topless club further downtown. The world had gone topless it seemed. Go go dancers had lost their tops, movies were often topless, there were even topless barber shops. Not that I would go to one. I looked like a stick of broccolli with my huge uncut afro and skinny body.
"Hey chick, wanna ball?" I blurted out. Ball meant sex.
She looked at me, turned to her friends and looking back at me said, "Groovy", her long blonde hair swaying as she walked.
That was that. I got up and we walked a few blocks to her place. It was a great walk, as many of my friends watched me with them. There was Peyote, so named because when he first came to town he had a trunk full of peyote buttons. You can see him in the WOODSTOCK film during the fish cheer section with his unkept hair and beard. There was Jimmy, awol from the Army giving me a huge smile. He blew his brains out when the MP's came to take him back. There was Dottie, beautiful Dottie who liked women and men. We walked by the guys giving away Orange Sunshine on the street. See, they'd give it away one day and come back on the weekend to sell it. Word of mouth would be the best advertising.
Acid was about altered realities, but it was also about advertising. TURN ON, TUNE IN AND DROP OUT was what Timothy Leary said. Well, we all were raised to do that. We'd turn on the TV, tune in one of the three to five channels, and drop out on the couch to watch. The words matched a ritual we had been doing since childhood. Which technically, I was still in.
There I was in her place with her three friends.
"Have you ever had a flower?", she asked as the other girls laughed. I had no idea what she was talking about. We all got undressed and I stood as the girls took turns kissing me. Funny, I didn't feel sexually used.
The girls then saw I was aroused and turned away, bending over.
I got it. Each was a petal, I was the stem.
I spun like a top!
I have no idea how long this went on but when it was over we started getting off on the Orange Sunshine. The girls were having fun, but I wanted to go back to the strip to trip. So I split. "Hey", Peter Pan called out to me, "What's your name?" as I walked into the night.
"Flash", I yelled back, stumbling towards the scene.
I sat myself down in front of the shop as a bootleg of Bob Dylan THE GREAT WHITE WONDER spilled it's sounds into the street.Cars were backed up now as rednecks came to look at the hippies. No cops in sight. Duane Allman walked by. He smiled and said, "Hey Flash. Far out" and walked over to me. He sat down next to me on the sidewalk.
"Hey dude", he said in his always friendly southern tone. "What's happenin"?" and I told him he'd missed the Brotherhood giving out free sunshine. We talked about the music coming from the store and I told him I wished I knew about the blues. I knew the British and American versions, some B.B. King, and that was about it. He told me to come with him. So we go behind the shop and we get on his bike and take off. I'm starting to trip hard riding with Duane and we get to his place and go inside.
He has a collection of 78's and 45's that is the biggest I've ever seen.
He hands me a beer and sits me down.
"This is Delta blues, this record is from 1933", and so begins my class on the blues.
For the next 7 hours or so, I heard every form of the blues. Who played on the record. How it was recorded. What happened to the artist. From Duane Allman.
And I thought what a great day. And I thought it would always be like this.
LIFE IS A CARNIVAL
You can walk on the water, drown in the sand You can fly off a mountaintop if anybody can Run away, run away--it's the restless age Look away, look away--you can turn the page Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheap Here on the street I got six on each arm and two more round my feet Life is a carnival--believe it or not Life is a carnival--two bits a shot Saw a man with the jinx in the third degree From trying to deal with people--people you can't see Take away, take away, this house of mirrors Give away, give away, all the souvenirs We're all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world The flat old world The street is a sideshow from the peddler to the corner girl Life is a carnival--it's in the book Life is a carnival--take another look Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheap Here on the street I got six on each arm and two more round my feet Life is a carnival--believe it or not Life is a carnival--two bits a shot
- The Band