Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n, one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing quality of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: The recent vote to legalize marijuana in the states of Washington and Colorado has legislators, lawyers and law enforcement scrambling for new guidelines. After all, the feds have cannabis scheduled as a class A drug, right up there with heroin, as certified by no less an authority than the Supreme Court. The DEA is urging Mexico to eradicate their marijuana fields, meanwhile Washington D.C. just okayed medical cannabis, any number of reality shows give us fully armored swat teams saving us from the evils of weed...in short--reefer madness. Absurdity begetting tragedy and perverting reason by imprisoning a million young people for a non-crime.
Oh yeah, American citizens have spoken clearly but still there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth by the conservatives-who have yet to come to grips with contraception, the fundamendalists-who can't dance, and the alcohol industry*...(Big tobacco may yet find this a boon.)
The victims at this Mad Hatter tea party are those unfortunate souls who happened to smoke a joint in the wrong state. Fodder for the corporate prison industry. Isn't it time we move move to set them free? And while we're at it, corporate prisons? Faceless financial entities whose profits come from broken lives?
If we legalize they might diversify into an honest, more humane business, like cultivating weed.
*in the future there will be cannabis infused vodka
A Long, Edgy Summer: 1970
The short voyage from Tangier to Naples was uneventful. The passengers were older, conservative, and confided in shocked whispers that one of the freighters had been overrun by anarchists and long haired hippies. The parent companyYugolinia had instituted a number of new rules that included overlong hair, dress codes and dogs.
We made sure to keep low key considering the square of black hash i had secured from Achmed's antique shop in Tangier. Located on a stairway leading down to Socco Chico, Achmed's shop was a serene, silk curtained cavern, light years away from the bustling outside traffic. Inside it was cool and silent with brass trays, mint tea, candlight, floor pillows and Achmed's wizened face, his smile ecstatic, as listed his famous clients... from the Rolling Stones to James Coburn. The ecstatic energy would intensify as he passed the pipe and expanded on the metaphysical connections between kif and Allah. Achmed had a natural cross on the palm of his right hand and claimed the cross was like a dowsing rod that guided him to the heart of the hash powder. When Achmed felt one had sufficient character of soul he would bestow a small slab of his black hash. This was the slab i had with me in hopes of finding inspiration for my second novel which, until then, was not on the horizon.
After docking in Naples, we immediately piled our bags onto a ferry bound for the island of Ischia. On arrival I stored the bags and took a bus to Lacco Ammeno, the place where we'd stayed five years before. Fortunately our haste paid off and we were able to rent our old room and bath, a week ahead of some prospective Italian tenants.
Lacco Ammeno was a sleepy fishing village with a skimpy beach, which had been transformed by the presence of one of the most luxurious hotels on the planet-the Regina Isabella-which has its own yacht basin. i preferred to take the bus to a beach called Citarra, which sits at the mouth of a hollowed out, semi-extinct volcano that churns up thermal water into the crisp green sea.
But as the sunny days and cool nights moved into the August religious festivals and September rains, the novel was not yet in sight.
Money was getting short but i was due a film option check for Doctor Orient which would get us to Rome.
Next: Roma, Fellini, and Cinecitta
edited by Robert Gilman
Friday, November 30, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
The Swords of the Desert
can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Medithrive patient delivery @ 415 562 6334 is an outstanding service. Originally one of San Francisco's premiere medical cannabis dispensaries, featuring state of the art ammenities and compassionate community outreach programs including contributions to a nearby school--which ironically led to their closure* by the now infamous U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag--has reinvented itself as a first-class delivery service. Their excellent selection is enhanced by imaginative marketing which ultimately benefits the patient and enables consumers to avail themselves of a variety of high-end strains without going over budget. They have liberal discounts and in my experience have honored all of their many special offers. Their staff is polite, knowledgable and quick to solve problems. Visit their website or give them a call. You'll be glad you did.
*(Speaking of hypocrisy--located directly across a North Beach grammar school on Broadway, is a strip club that serves alcohol, and yet a cannabis dispensary needs to be 1000 feet from any school)
The Swords of the Desert: Morocco1970
The Marrakech Express lived up to its name from Tangier to Casablanca. After that it slowed down considerably, morphing into a milk train that stopped often for six hours or so before arriving at its fabled destination.
The first thing i noticed was the clean, sandlewood air, warm and pure. The second was the low throbbing of the drums.
While faint at first, the sound deepened as we neared town. We took a room in a small hotel in the Euro section, dropped our bags and walked in the direction of the drums. Passing through the large gates we entered a new world.
Djemaa el-Fna means gathering place of of the dead Once a place of public execution, it had evolved into a teeming marketplace of human imagination. A clash of cultures spilled across the stalls and carpets that displayed all manner of goods from dentures to aphrodisiacs. Blue turbaned Tauregs sporting curved daggers, brushed shoulders with tall, impassive Nubians in white robes, Berber women, faces marked with tribal tattoos, water sellers in tasseled hats, their brass cups clanking like cow bells, mules laden with vegetables from the mountain farms...all wandering through a multi-ringed circus of acrobats, magicians, jugglers, fortune tellers, soothsayers, card sharps, pickpockets, food vendors, snake charmers, and trance dancers. Everywhere the smell of kif mingled with the breath of mint tea and musty scent of a hundred spices. Crowds would swirl around the various performers then disintegrate, only to reform somwhere else. The high pitched oboes of the snake charmers rose above the constant drumming.
Beyond the open area were tunnelled souks selling rugs, jewels, cosmetics, robes, dried fruit, musk, antiques, whatever...dusty sunrays slanting through the thatched roofs overhead. Indeed it was magical. Everything seemed edgy, primitive and authentic. On the other hand it was a show biz oasis at the cusp of the vast Sahara. An age old Vegas for merchants fresh off the caravan.
Personally i felt blessed to be there.
At night the market was lit by kerosene lamps and the dancers took over, their feet blurred in the flickering light, barely touching ground, spinning in time to the relentless drums.
Later we spotted Mick Jagger racing across the market.
For eight days i remained dazzled, then headed back to a now tame Tangier. However over the next month i saw that the small town at the mouth of the Mediteranean had layers, and everybody was a player.
The weather had become balmy and we had taken to sunbathing at one of the cabana clubs that had opened early. It was there we met John Hohnsbeen, an art afficianado and collector, who as a younger man had lived with Philip Johnson the architect, in the famous glass house and was a pal of Peggy Guggenheim. He was in Morocco with his current friend Roland, and a brilliant dude to hang with: funny, wise and hip. Another face from America was a character named Alan Strohl who was a friend of Andrew Loog Oldham (of the Stones) and Baby Jane Holzer (night club debutante). Alan had a wild pre-punk look with bleached hair and razor thin features. We met at a hamburger stand run by an ex-Nazi named Eric. Alan ran in extremely fast circles in New York. A few years later he had a fatal heart attack. However at the moment he was traveling with one of my ex clients in the herb biz.
As spring blossomed we decided to sail to the familiar island of Ischia, off Naples, for the summer, where we knew of a good little hut to rent and a great beach.
Now Tangier has two beaches, one on the Atlantic side, another on the Mediterranean bay. But the Atlantic was rough, and the bay too industrial, being within swimming distance to the dock area. So we booked passage on the next passing Yugoslavian
freighter, carted Lady M's many suitcases and trunks aboard, and sailed off to Italy...
Author's Note: This post is dedicated to Keith Deutsch
publisher, editor, poet, friend
Thanks to editor Robert Gilman
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Medithrive patient delivery @ 415 562 6334 is an outstanding service. Originally one of San Francisco's premiere medical cannabis dispensaries, featuring state of the art ammenities and compassionate community outreach programs including contributions to a nearby school--which ironically led to their closure* by the now infamous U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag--has reinvented itself as a first-class delivery service. Their excellent selection is enhanced by imaginative marketing which ultimately benefits the patient and enables consumers to avail themselves of a variety of high-end strains without going over budget. They have liberal discounts and in my experience have honored all of their many special offers. Their staff is polite, knowledgable and quick to solve problems. Visit their website or give them a call. You'll be glad you did.
*(Speaking of hypocrisy--located directly across a North Beach grammar school on Broadway, is a strip club that serves alcohol, and yet a cannabis dispensary needs to be 1000 feet from any school)
The Swords of the Desert: Morocco1970
The Marrakech Express lived up to its name from Tangier to Casablanca. After that it slowed down considerably, morphing into a milk train that stopped often for six hours or so before arriving at its fabled destination.
The first thing i noticed was the clean, sandlewood air, warm and pure. The second was the low throbbing of the drums.
While faint at first, the sound deepened as we neared town. We took a room in a small hotel in the Euro section, dropped our bags and walked in the direction of the drums. Passing through the large gates we entered a new world.
Djemaa el-Fna means gathering place of of the dead Once a place of public execution, it had evolved into a teeming marketplace of human imagination. A clash of cultures spilled across the stalls and carpets that displayed all manner of goods from dentures to aphrodisiacs. Blue turbaned Tauregs sporting curved daggers, brushed shoulders with tall, impassive Nubians in white robes, Berber women, faces marked with tribal tattoos, water sellers in tasseled hats, their brass cups clanking like cow bells, mules laden with vegetables from the mountain farms...all wandering through a multi-ringed circus of acrobats, magicians, jugglers, fortune tellers, soothsayers, card sharps, pickpockets, food vendors, snake charmers, and trance dancers. Everywhere the smell of kif mingled with the breath of mint tea and musty scent of a hundred spices. Crowds would swirl around the various performers then disintegrate, only to reform somwhere else. The high pitched oboes of the snake charmers rose above the constant drumming.
Beyond the open area were tunnelled souks selling rugs, jewels, cosmetics, robes, dried fruit, musk, antiques, whatever...dusty sunrays slanting through the thatched roofs overhead. Indeed it was magical. Everything seemed edgy, primitive and authentic. On the other hand it was a show biz oasis at the cusp of the vast Sahara. An age old Vegas for merchants fresh off the caravan.
Personally i felt blessed to be there.
At night the market was lit by kerosene lamps and the dancers took over, their feet blurred in the flickering light, barely touching ground, spinning in time to the relentless drums.
Later we spotted Mick Jagger racing across the market.
For eight days i remained dazzled, then headed back to a now tame Tangier. However over the next month i saw that the small town at the mouth of the Mediteranean had layers, and everybody was a player.
The weather had become balmy and we had taken to sunbathing at one of the cabana clubs that had opened early. It was there we met John Hohnsbeen, an art afficianado and collector, who as a younger man had lived with Philip Johnson the architect, in the famous glass house and was a pal of Peggy Guggenheim. He was in Morocco with his current friend Roland, and a brilliant dude to hang with: funny, wise and hip. Another face from America was a character named Alan Strohl who was a friend of Andrew Loog Oldham (of the Stones) and Baby Jane Holzer (night club debutante). Alan had a wild pre-punk look with bleached hair and razor thin features. We met at a hamburger stand run by an ex-Nazi named Eric. Alan ran in extremely fast circles in New York. A few years later he had a fatal heart attack. However at the moment he was traveling with one of my ex clients in the herb biz.
As spring blossomed we decided to sail to the familiar island of Ischia, off Naples, for the summer, where we knew of a good little hut to rent and a great beach.
Now Tangier has two beaches, one on the Atlantic side, another on the Mediterranean bay. But the Atlantic was rough, and the bay too industrial, being within swimming distance to the dock area. So we booked passage on the next passing Yugoslavian
freighter, carted Lady M's many suitcases and trunks aboard, and sailed off to Italy...
Author's Note: This post is dedicated to Keith Deutsch
publisher, editor, poet, friend
Thanks to editor Robert Gilman
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Second Novel Blues
Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Taking my own advice, i phoned Oakland 420 Medical Evaluations and had zero trouble making an appointment. Just over the Bay Bridge from SF at 2633 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, it was easy to find and parking was available. There were a smattering of patients on line but when i told the receptionist i had an appointment she handed me 3 pages of requisite paperwork, including endless legal disclaimers. From the number of people waiting i speculated the doctor would run overtime but to my surprise my name was called barely five minutes past my appointment. It was a renewal visit but the doctor informed himself of changes in my condition and fifteen minutes later i was standing in front of the camera while Marie, the lovely and intelligent receptionist snapped a picture for my Photo ID card. (Now i can vote in Alabama.)
All in all an efficient, highly professional experience. Best of all they honor all coupons.
Second Novel Blues: Tangier 1970
The Hotel Astoria was located off Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag in town. A short walk took one to the Cafe de Paris, which served the best coffee in North Africa. Expats from all corners of life hung out there: a range of characters that included artists, writers, ex-spies, fugitives,, dealers of every persuasion, smugglers, rich hedonists, poor
hedonists, male prostitutes, gay tourists, and a sprinkling of ex-Nazis on the lam. Most of the clientele was male and favored some variation of European dress, usually accessorized by a red Fez hat and the ubiquitous yellow pointed slippers. Formerly an international zone, without extradition and subject to its own laws, the aura of danger clung to Tangier like cheap perfume.
You could change money at the Cafe de Paris, or buy tax free cigarettes, or booze--but by tacit agreement the cannabis trade was relegated to the souks of the Kasbah. One rarely, if ever, saw a pipe being lit on Boulevard Pasteur.
The passersby however, were more traditional, most males wearing djelabas, while the veiled females sported straw hats from Tetouan or red striped shawls that identified them as coming from the Rif mountains. As the tribal ladies shuffled past the Cafe on their way to market, their kohl blackened eyes stared above blue veils at the strange world lounging on the other side of the plate glass.
If one were to follow the ladies down to the Socco Chico the relative calm of the Euro section gave way to a blur of movement and color. It was there one could see the robed men gathered in cafes or hunched in their vending stalls, lighting endless pipes of kif and drinking sweet mint tea.
It still being the rainy season, the skies were overcast and the beaches empty, leaving the market as the main source of entertainment. And indeed it had circus-like elements with acrobats, jugglers and fortune tellers sharing the stage with hippies, foreign tourists, and bohemian ex-pats. Arab music wafted from invisible radios as the past and the future merged in the square.
With all that i was having trouble gaining traction on the follow up to my first novel, due out in the fall. After an intense eleven days of wrtiting aboard the freighter, the urgency was gone. Nothing to do but dig the world over a pipe and a glass of hot mint tea.
Now Tangier is a small town. After a few weeks the same hustlers and their bizarre acts becames routine. How many times can you go to the dancing boy cafe--where a young lad tarted up as an oriental lady, danced for a crowd of grizzled men in hooded robes in a room thick with smoke from kif pipes? Or the Parrot bar where the proprietess was an ex carnival motorcycle stunt rider? Considering the fact that one saw the same faces in these venues every night, it soon grew constricting.
So after a month, it was decided to take the Marrakech Express.
Next: The Swords of the Desert
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Taking my own advice, i phoned Oakland 420 Medical Evaluations and had zero trouble making an appointment. Just over the Bay Bridge from SF at 2633 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, it was easy to find and parking was available. There were a smattering of patients on line but when i told the receptionist i had an appointment she handed me 3 pages of requisite paperwork, including endless legal disclaimers. From the number of people waiting i speculated the doctor would run overtime but to my surprise my name was called barely five minutes past my appointment. It was a renewal visit but the doctor informed himself of changes in my condition and fifteen minutes later i was standing in front of the camera while Marie, the lovely and intelligent receptionist snapped a picture for my Photo ID card. (Now i can vote in Alabama.)
All in all an efficient, highly professional experience. Best of all they honor all coupons.
Second Novel Blues: Tangier 1970
The Hotel Astoria was located off Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag in town. A short walk took one to the Cafe de Paris, which served the best coffee in North Africa. Expats from all corners of life hung out there: a range of characters that included artists, writers, ex-spies, fugitives,, dealers of every persuasion, smugglers, rich hedonists, poor
hedonists, male prostitutes, gay tourists, and a sprinkling of ex-Nazis on the lam. Most of the clientele was male and favored some variation of European dress, usually accessorized by a red Fez hat and the ubiquitous yellow pointed slippers. Formerly an international zone, without extradition and subject to its own laws, the aura of danger clung to Tangier like cheap perfume.
You could change money at the Cafe de Paris, or buy tax free cigarettes, or booze--but by tacit agreement the cannabis trade was relegated to the souks of the Kasbah. One rarely, if ever, saw a pipe being lit on Boulevard Pasteur.
The passersby however, were more traditional, most males wearing djelabas, while the veiled females sported straw hats from Tetouan or red striped shawls that identified them as coming from the Rif mountains. As the tribal ladies shuffled past the Cafe on their way to market, their kohl blackened eyes stared above blue veils at the strange world lounging on the other side of the plate glass.
If one were to follow the ladies down to the Socco Chico the relative calm of the Euro section gave way to a blur of movement and color. It was there one could see the robed men gathered in cafes or hunched in their vending stalls, lighting endless pipes of kif and drinking sweet mint tea.
It still being the rainy season, the skies were overcast and the beaches empty, leaving the market as the main source of entertainment. And indeed it had circus-like elements with acrobats, jugglers and fortune tellers sharing the stage with hippies, foreign tourists, and bohemian ex-pats. Arab music wafted from invisible radios as the past and the future merged in the square.
With all that i was having trouble gaining traction on the follow up to my first novel, due out in the fall. After an intense eleven days of wrtiting aboard the freighter, the urgency was gone. Nothing to do but dig the world over a pipe and a glass of hot mint tea.
Now Tangier is a small town. After a few weeks the same hustlers and their bizarre acts becames routine. How many times can you go to the dancing boy cafe--where a young lad tarted up as an oriental lady, danced for a crowd of grizzled men in hooded robes in a room thick with smoke from kif pipes? Or the Parrot bar where the proprietess was an ex carnival motorcycle stunt rider? Considering the fact that one saw the same faces in these venues every night, it soon grew constricting.
So after a month, it was decided to take the Marrakech Express.
Next: The Swords of the Desert
Thursday, September 20, 2012
SHORE LEAVE
can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannibis
"The most amazing property of cannibis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up; Anyone looking to to renew or qualify for, their Medical Marijuana card at Priceless Evaluations at 20th and Mission (check the San Francisco Guardian or Rolling Stone for discount coupons) should plan very carefully. For some reason, even with an appointment patients are relegated to the starkly bare waiting rooms, where the wait is at least two hours. Not only has their admission system crashed but street construction has limited parking and traffic cops circle like wolves around a chicken coop, so bring plenty of quarters. Oh yeah, don't use the elevator, it's broken, and the security guard downstairs feels it's not his job to warn you--or answer the alarm.
Can you say Oakland?
In Praise of the Rejection Slip: When Jack London decided to pursue a career as a writer, he vowed he would quit only when his rejection slips reached the top of his desk spindle. Now the previous sentence contains three little used words. A 'spindle' being a narrow metal spike which stood upright on the desk where one would skewer bills, letters, news articles and such, until they could be attended to and dispatched. One notable 'and such' was the 'rejection slip'.
The aspiring writer would slip his (or her) manuscript into an envelope and mail it to the publisher. Eventually the manuscript would be returned with a note. Some of these were personal suggestions by the editor, most were form letters, but they all added up to the same thing. The manuscript had been rejected. I personally saved all of these rejection slips intending to open a bar called Rejection, where all my slips would be posted on the wall. (Any writer presenting a bona fide rejection slip would get drinks on the house all night). I still like the idea, except in today's new world the rejection slip has vanished. One sends a manuscript in via Email, never to be heard from again. The work seems to be consumed by some digital black hole that reduces all form of creativity and hope into nothingness. At least in the old days, even a form letter assured the recipient that the work had been touched by human hands, perhaps even skimmed or better yet, actually read, before being tossed aside. Today all it takes is the delete button to destroy any memory of a creative dream. Not even the courtesy of a reach around. I have been told by some editors and agents that in today's litigious society, they are afraid of possible blowback by a disgruntled author with an AK47. And judging from recent events in our NRA sponsered society, they may have a valid point. But in my day publishers were not pussies, and had the courage to treat their literary supplicants with a modicum of respect. The message conveyed was: not this time but you're still in the game, try again. The message today?...oh, there is no message. Your work doesn't exist and neither do you. I'll have that drink now.
Shore Leave: 11th Day of a 1970 Freighter Voyage to Tangier.
(Author's Note: If you have been reading the past five or six posts you have a fair idea of what taking a freighter across the great water was like. So with your indulgence i'll wind up the memoir and cut to the chase.)
"Well what's your conclusion? How is it five years later? Do you still have the radar?" Garfunkel challenged, having read some pertinent pages of Scorpio's log.
Scorpio was satisfied. He was going at the same speed, down the same road--but now he had a set of four-wheel disc brakes. Not for stopping but for cornering. He was thirty and in better shape for the next phase than he had been for the last. He was ready, and age was a state of readiness.
However it had been a long time since he had made a new friend. Garfunkel grinned and counted himself in. Pack the same, filling Scorpio's cup...
About two-thirty in the morning the boat stopped.
About three-thirty, after fifteen people had popped their heads in the door yelling "You've really got to see this," Pack and Scorpio went up on deck for a look at the beaded strings of amber light that hinted at the strange streets in the shadows of 3a.m..
The boat had dropped anchor in the Bay of Tangier. It would pull into dock at 8a.m., disembark passengers, unload cargo, and put in fresh stores. It would leave for Valencia, Spain, that evening. Then on to Tunis, Italy, and Yugoslavia. That settled they came in from the chill into the warm lounge and back to some drowsy talk.
Pack speculated on six more days on the boat with only Tina and Blaine left to carry on. He planned to go to Florence, pick up some money due, accompany Tina to Greece, and then go alone to some other scene.
"Sounds simple but it could get complicated," Scorpio ventured.
"Absolutely cool, " Pack insisted.
Garfunkel knew it was possible for a man and woman to live apart for a while, get tight with someone else, and then resume.
Scorpio well yeahed that, knowing it was rational. But he felt there were some kickers in there, some aces up the sleeve of conditioning.
Pack was still down over being alone on the Boat.
Scorpio suggested he might find the time to pull his health together into a condition presentable enough to check into a Swiss rest home.
Eyes slitted over his moustache Pack looked like a grizzled Pan. True Capricorn goat man piping a party. And he nodded yeah, it was true, he was totally stretched; "Your basic burnt out husk."
About this time the pace of the past 144 hours had ground everyone's energy down fine. At five that morning they decided to skip the sunrise and get some sleep. Garfunkel would be leaving early so he said his so longs there.
Two hours later Scorpio was rousted by the Steward calling for passport award and landing procedures in the lounge. Scorpio ducked out for some fresh air before the rigamarole and there, curving around the green bay, was Tangier, spreading lush over the hills above the white sand beach. Just beyond the dock area was the Kasbah, a low bulge of gold domes, blue towers and whitewash roofs rising up and up above the waterfront cafes and crumbling sea cliff walls.
The original street.
The boat was docked close to the waterfront boulevard and Scorpio could see hooded figures hunched on the curbs or sitting in cafes. There were women wearing veils and kaftans, men in grey suits and yellow slippers shuffling off to work, stevedores in djelabas--full robes that concealed who knows what--hovering around the boat, every so often crouching down to light a pipe. Crates swung overhead. A man in a brown djelaba, hood back to frame his wool skull cap, impassively operated the crane mechanism.
Back inside, a desk had been set up at one end of the lounge giving the room an ominous air that morning. Most of the passengers were standing about impatiently. Silent.
Suspicious of officials in uniform.
The Tribe was something else again.
All were wearing straight clothes--or what they considered straight. The ladies were quite together, neat in suburban tea dresses and tights to cover unshaven legs, fresh and innocent of face. The men were less conservative. With day-glo bell bottoms, flowered shirts, polka dots, striped coats, their waist length hair slicked back, parted in the middle, drawn close to the skull and tucked into their shirt collars, they looked like 1920 lounge lizards, parlor snakes, prohibition dandies--which of course they were.
The men behind the desk; burly, stern, disapproving fellows, had told the tribe that if they disembarked looking like a bunch of Hindu fortune tellers
Big Brother, Tangier Chapter, would shave their hair and deport them.
The Tribe looked morose, considering a crew cut Mecca.
"May I have my passport?" The Holy Man asked finally, after everyone was cleared.
"They sent it to the police," the Steward said, in a c'est le guerre manner.
"Oh yeah." The Holy Man smiled weakly. "Alright then," he conceded, shoving his hands into his day-glo pockets and looking like a dude at the county fair just been hoodwinked.
The Steward suddenly rummaged through a cheesebox. "Wait a moment please--is here." He grinned and handed the Holy Man his passport.
Great joke fellas. Heh, heh.
Paperwork finished Scorpio went to his cabin and lost five bills to the customs inspector whose pockets started watering at the sight of all that luggage Mysterious Traveling Companion was hauling.
Waiting for the bags to be brought down to the taxi, we watched the young travelers float down the gangplank, a solid row of pilgrims, their worldly belongings in the parachute packs strapped to their backs, pioneers of a new passage to the Learning Tree.
Scorpio and MTC got themselves nicely set up in a hotel in the European section--$3.80 bath and breakfast--then went back to the boat to see if Pack and Tina were up for some Tangiering. Pack was there asleep but Tina was gone. The Steward told them she went ashore to do some shopping. Pack hopped up and the three of them went to the waterfront boulevard. They walked a bit then stopped at a cafe for tea.
Pack being newly awake was trying to straighten himself out but was worried about Tina alone in Tangier.
A small boy came up and asked for a cigarette. A little girl shyly extended her hand for money. Kids 2, Scorpio 0.
As they sat there they saw The Tribe, The Holy Man back in tribal clothes, swinging down the street with their dogs and new found friend Hamid.
They took it all in and wondered where to find Tina.
Finally they went back to the entrance to the Socco Chico, the small market in the Kasbah. They were hungry now and looking for salad and shishkabob. Through the blur of color and confusion in the market they spotted a group of faces from the boat. Honest Fred and some others, waving them over. They told Pack that Tina was in the first restaurant down the alley. Sure enough there's Tina eating, and sitting with an old friend she ran into named Jazee, cat from Amsterdam with a full mane of golden hair, been in Tangier a year this time around.
After a good meal Jazee helped everyone get their cannabis needs well taken care of, then took them up to a terrace cafe for a smoke and a glass of delicious mint tea. Up there in the sun, they goofed on heiress Barbara Hutton's tiled patio next door and watched the blue walls and whitewash roofs slope to the sea.
It was there that Pack had to ask for time. He was feeling flutters in his chest, the after effects of his long distance run. "Hold on Willie boy, your heart's gonna give right out on you..."
So then it was a slow walk down the alley to Socco Chico, down around and they were at the entrance to the pier. Pack, Scorpio, MTC and Tina knew what was happening. They had maintained a rare communication for eleven days and now it was time to let it be.
They looked at each other, smiling some, not saying much in the way of keep in touch, knowing they had separate appointments with the Joker Man. Just a handshake, a hug and a kiss. And then there was nothing left to say.
End Log 1970
Cannoisseur head shot
photographed by John Hanford
"The most amazing property of cannibis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up; Anyone looking to to renew or qualify for, their Medical Marijuana card at Priceless Evaluations at 20th and Mission (check the San Francisco Guardian or Rolling Stone for discount coupons) should plan very carefully. For some reason, even with an appointment patients are relegated to the starkly bare waiting rooms, where the wait is at least two hours. Not only has their admission system crashed but street construction has limited parking and traffic cops circle like wolves around a chicken coop, so bring plenty of quarters. Oh yeah, don't use the elevator, it's broken, and the security guard downstairs feels it's not his job to warn you--or answer the alarm.
Can you say Oakland?
In Praise of the Rejection Slip: When Jack London decided to pursue a career as a writer, he vowed he would quit only when his rejection slips reached the top of his desk spindle. Now the previous sentence contains three little used words. A 'spindle' being a narrow metal spike which stood upright on the desk where one would skewer bills, letters, news articles and such, until they could be attended to and dispatched. One notable 'and such' was the 'rejection slip'.
The aspiring writer would slip his (or her) manuscript into an envelope and mail it to the publisher. Eventually the manuscript would be returned with a note. Some of these were personal suggestions by the editor, most were form letters, but they all added up to the same thing. The manuscript had been rejected. I personally saved all of these rejection slips intending to open a bar called Rejection, where all my slips would be posted on the wall. (Any writer presenting a bona fide rejection slip would get drinks on the house all night). I still like the idea, except in today's new world the rejection slip has vanished. One sends a manuscript in via Email, never to be heard from again. The work seems to be consumed by some digital black hole that reduces all form of creativity and hope into nothingness. At least in the old days, even a form letter assured the recipient that the work had been touched by human hands, perhaps even skimmed or better yet, actually read, before being tossed aside. Today all it takes is the delete button to destroy any memory of a creative dream. Not even the courtesy of a reach around. I have been told by some editors and agents that in today's litigious society, they are afraid of possible blowback by a disgruntled author with an AK47. And judging from recent events in our NRA sponsered society, they may have a valid point. But in my day publishers were not pussies, and had the courage to treat their literary supplicants with a modicum of respect. The message conveyed was: not this time but you're still in the game, try again. The message today?...oh, there is no message. Your work doesn't exist and neither do you. I'll have that drink now.
Shore Leave: 11th Day of a 1970 Freighter Voyage to Tangier.
(Author's Note: If you have been reading the past five or six posts you have a fair idea of what taking a freighter across the great water was like. So with your indulgence i'll wind up the memoir and cut to the chase.)
"Well what's your conclusion? How is it five years later? Do you still have the radar?" Garfunkel challenged, having read some pertinent pages of Scorpio's log.
Scorpio was satisfied. He was going at the same speed, down the same road--but now he had a set of four-wheel disc brakes. Not for stopping but for cornering. He was thirty and in better shape for the next phase than he had been for the last. He was ready, and age was a state of readiness.
However it had been a long time since he had made a new friend. Garfunkel grinned and counted himself in. Pack the same, filling Scorpio's cup...
About two-thirty in the morning the boat stopped.
About three-thirty, after fifteen people had popped their heads in the door yelling "You've really got to see this," Pack and Scorpio went up on deck for a look at the beaded strings of amber light that hinted at the strange streets in the shadows of 3a.m..
The boat had dropped anchor in the Bay of Tangier. It would pull into dock at 8a.m., disembark passengers, unload cargo, and put in fresh stores. It would leave for Valencia, Spain, that evening. Then on to Tunis, Italy, and Yugoslavia. That settled they came in from the chill into the warm lounge and back to some drowsy talk.
Pack speculated on six more days on the boat with only Tina and Blaine left to carry on. He planned to go to Florence, pick up some money due, accompany Tina to Greece, and then go alone to some other scene.
"Sounds simple but it could get complicated," Scorpio ventured.
"Absolutely cool, " Pack insisted.
Garfunkel knew it was possible for a man and woman to live apart for a while, get tight with someone else, and then resume.
Scorpio well yeahed that, knowing it was rational. But he felt there were some kickers in there, some aces up the sleeve of conditioning.
Pack was still down over being alone on the Boat.
Scorpio suggested he might find the time to pull his health together into a condition presentable enough to check into a Swiss rest home.
Eyes slitted over his moustache Pack looked like a grizzled Pan. True Capricorn goat man piping a party. And he nodded yeah, it was true, he was totally stretched; "Your basic burnt out husk."
About this time the pace of the past 144 hours had ground everyone's energy down fine. At five that morning they decided to skip the sunrise and get some sleep. Garfunkel would be leaving early so he said his so longs there.
Two hours later Scorpio was rousted by the Steward calling for passport award and landing procedures in the lounge. Scorpio ducked out for some fresh air before the rigamarole and there, curving around the green bay, was Tangier, spreading lush over the hills above the white sand beach. Just beyond the dock area was the Kasbah, a low bulge of gold domes, blue towers and whitewash roofs rising up and up above the waterfront cafes and crumbling sea cliff walls.
The original street.
The boat was docked close to the waterfront boulevard and Scorpio could see hooded figures hunched on the curbs or sitting in cafes. There were women wearing veils and kaftans, men in grey suits and yellow slippers shuffling off to work, stevedores in djelabas--full robes that concealed who knows what--hovering around the boat, every so often crouching down to light a pipe. Crates swung overhead. A man in a brown djelaba, hood back to frame his wool skull cap, impassively operated the crane mechanism.
Back inside, a desk had been set up at one end of the lounge giving the room an ominous air that morning. Most of the passengers were standing about impatiently. Silent.
Suspicious of officials in uniform.
The Tribe was something else again.
All were wearing straight clothes--or what they considered straight. The ladies were quite together, neat in suburban tea dresses and tights to cover unshaven legs, fresh and innocent of face. The men were less conservative. With day-glo bell bottoms, flowered shirts, polka dots, striped coats, their waist length hair slicked back, parted in the middle, drawn close to the skull and tucked into their shirt collars, they looked like 1920 lounge lizards, parlor snakes, prohibition dandies--which of course they were.
The men behind the desk; burly, stern, disapproving fellows, had told the tribe that if they disembarked looking like a bunch of Hindu fortune tellers
Big Brother, Tangier Chapter, would shave their hair and deport them.
The Tribe looked morose, considering a crew cut Mecca.
"May I have my passport?" The Holy Man asked finally, after everyone was cleared.
"They sent it to the police," the Steward said, in a c'est le guerre manner.
"Oh yeah." The Holy Man smiled weakly. "Alright then," he conceded, shoving his hands into his day-glo pockets and looking like a dude at the county fair just been hoodwinked.
The Steward suddenly rummaged through a cheesebox. "Wait a moment please--is here." He grinned and handed the Holy Man his passport.
Great joke fellas. Heh, heh.
Paperwork finished Scorpio went to his cabin and lost five bills to the customs inspector whose pockets started watering at the sight of all that luggage Mysterious Traveling Companion was hauling.
Waiting for the bags to be brought down to the taxi, we watched the young travelers float down the gangplank, a solid row of pilgrims, their worldly belongings in the parachute packs strapped to their backs, pioneers of a new passage to the Learning Tree.
Scorpio and MTC got themselves nicely set up in a hotel in the European section--$3.80 bath and breakfast--then went back to the boat to see if Pack and Tina were up for some Tangiering. Pack was there asleep but Tina was gone. The Steward told them she went ashore to do some shopping. Pack hopped up and the three of them went to the waterfront boulevard. They walked a bit then stopped at a cafe for tea.
Pack being newly awake was trying to straighten himself out but was worried about Tina alone in Tangier.
A small boy came up and asked for a cigarette. A little girl shyly extended her hand for money. Kids 2, Scorpio 0.
As they sat there they saw The Tribe, The Holy Man back in tribal clothes, swinging down the street with their dogs and new found friend Hamid.
They took it all in and wondered where to find Tina.
Finally they went back to the entrance to the Socco Chico, the small market in the Kasbah. They were hungry now and looking for salad and shishkabob. Through the blur of color and confusion in the market they spotted a group of faces from the boat. Honest Fred and some others, waving them over. They told Pack that Tina was in the first restaurant down the alley. Sure enough there's Tina eating, and sitting with an old friend she ran into named Jazee, cat from Amsterdam with a full mane of golden hair, been in Tangier a year this time around.
After a good meal Jazee helped everyone get their cannabis needs well taken care of, then took them up to a terrace cafe for a smoke and a glass of delicious mint tea. Up there in the sun, they goofed on heiress Barbara Hutton's tiled patio next door and watched the blue walls and whitewash roofs slope to the sea.
It was there that Pack had to ask for time. He was feeling flutters in his chest, the after effects of his long distance run. "Hold on Willie boy, your heart's gonna give right out on you..."
So then it was a slow walk down the alley to Socco Chico, down around and they were at the entrance to the pier. Pack, Scorpio, MTC and Tina knew what was happening. They had maintained a rare communication for eleven days and now it was time to let it be.
They looked at each other, smiling some, not saying much in the way of keep in touch, knowing they had separate appointments with the Joker Man. Just a handshake, a hug and a kiss. And then there was nothing left to say.
End Log 1970
Cannoisseur head shot
photographed by John Hanford
Friday, September 7, 2012
A Commercial Break
Tooting My Horn
Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n, one competent to render critical judement one the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
Heads Up: This month Doctor Orient and Lady Sativa, the dark occult novels starring the cannabis inspired Dr Owen Orient, have become available online by e-reads, marking the first time the original 3 books (including Raga Six) are under the banner of a single publisher. On Monday Sept. 10th, you can download Doctor Orient and Lady Sativa FREE from Amazon Kindle.
"A psychic James Bond"
Publisher's Weekly
"Frank Lauria has writter the most believable Vampire and Werewolf novels I have ever read."
William S. Burroughs
Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n, one competent to render critical judement one the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
Heads Up: This month Doctor Orient and Lady Sativa, the dark occult novels starring the cannabis inspired Dr Owen Orient, have become available online by e-reads, marking the first time the original 3 books (including Raga Six) are under the banner of a single publisher. On Monday Sept. 10th, you can download Doctor Orient and Lady Sativa FREE from Amazon Kindle.
"A psychic James Bond"
Publisher's Weekly
"Frank Lauria has writter the most believable Vampire and Werewolf novels I have ever read."
William S. Burroughs
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Big Broadcast
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Heavy props to Re-Leaf at 1284 Mission @ 9th St., San Francisco, for dispensing a wide variety of high quality, fair trade herb. While small, they are a major market factor, keeping prices low as other dispensaries raise their rates. They've even been known to throw the occasional barbecue for the neighborhood. Stop by for a taste.
The Big Broadcast
(the continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
As usual Scorpio went to work after dinner and closed shop just in time to see the bar close. However Pack had taken to buying it by the bottle due to the bar's skimpy hours (4 to 5:30 and 7 to 10), so they settled down to talk it over. They looked for Garfunkel who was across the lounge, playing Scrabble with his collegiate table mates.
A small tribe, consisting of two very long haired cats, two madonna ladies in Rennaisance garb and two dogs, floated by. Scorpio was cornered by an elderly cat from D.C. who was a dedicated fucking racist. After hearing his opening rant earlier, Scorpio had avoided him as best he could--but there he was. Fred Hart was concerned about militant revolution and seemed to think that Scorpio had the answer. Scorpio, taken aback, knew what he could not say.
Pack was huddling with Garfunkel now. As he'd been closely involved with the music business, it gave them more than a few references in common. Again, the room thinned out about midnight, leaving ten or twelve troupers drinking, smoking and listening to Joe Cocker getting by.
Scorpio began talking to a couple of faces, namely Whiting and Mort. Whiting was nineteen and Canadian.He had a passive, shy hip--nice and easy... Scorpio liked his vibration right off. Mort was a little older and harder around the edges, the diamond glint in his eye reminding Scorpio of those types who always seemed to be the proprietors of head shops, or concert halls. He was a former student looking for export/import opportunites.
Both were agog at the adventure they had found On The Boat, reporting outlines of various scenes: the cat who was dealing lids, Whiting's photo of the tribal dogs copulating, the fact that everyone was on an indefinite trip, the fact that everyone was looking for some elusive further truth...Pack came over to Scorpio and asked if he'd like to hang inside. Scorpio excused himself and followed him back to the cabin. Garfunkle was there sipping a scotch. Some smoke magically appeared and Scorpio went next door for some cassettes.
While Monkey Man crashed along in true Stones fashion, Scorpio nursed his drink and sipped his tea. Then, as the first sweet choruses of You Can't Always Get What You Want began, he turned up the volume full blast. A bit of overkill that floored Garfunkel. When he came to he demanded to hear the rest of the Let It Bleed album immediately. As he listened he commented that he'd like to get that sound on some of his sides. He pulled some cassettes from his own stash. The first was Songs I Learned At My Father's Knee, by the Everley Brothers. Garfunkel reminisced that he'd been hung on the Everly Brothers all through high school, waiting impatiently for their new singles and buying them as soon as they were released. After the Everlies, Garfunkel laid a tape on the room that consisted of various things he liked: a couple of Larry Coryell cuts, the Stones' Sympathy For the Devil, his very favorite McCartney/Lennon song, Here There and Everywhere, and something intricate and majestic by a Hungarian Chorus.
Garfunkle and Scorpio went off to Abbey Road, wondering why such a fine piece of work was ripped and dismissed by the critics. They both agreed it was mostly side two, but the sheer flipped out, unprecedented brilliance of that side should have earned the Beatles more than an oh yeah.
Scorpio believed the critics were constantly shifting loyalties, as well as their integrity, to survive. First the artist is fawned upon, then yawned upon. More scotch was passed and Pack went into some old memories of Lenny Bruce in LA. Scorpio leaped to offer the Lenny tape he was holding. His sentimental favorite, the Frank Dell at the Palladium routine.
Pack wasn't familiar with the bit, but Garfunkel was very involved. Garfunkle told them that he and Paul blew riffs from that same Lenny solo between themselves, especially when they were on the road playing strange towns and strange rooms. In fact, he was carrying that very
Lenny Bruce album. Meanwhile the tape ran past Lenny into the Groupie album Scorpio had recorded as an off-the-wall slice of Americana. The album had been distributed mainly through mail order ads in papers like the Voice and the East Village Other, and was rumoured to have been produced by Frank Zappa. The record is a discussion/confession of the rock courtesan life style, by some the ladies who travel that road themselves, notably Cynthia Plaster Caster who takes plaster casts of rock cocks. A reality Scorpio saw as an extension of Lenny's absurd eye.. "the only people laughing were the two usherettes who balled everybody who played the theater,"
Lenny Bruce
from the Palladium routine
Garunkel was first taken by the rippling voice effect that started the round robin. And when the birds began to sing he was amazed. He wanted to know where he could grab this lurid prize. It was decided to transfer it to a blank tape. Scorpio did pause to reflect what type of groupies Paul and Garfunkle encountered. A poet and a one man band.
Next: The Big Broadcast Gets Bigger
Highly Recommended: Http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilmfilm/show
Author's Note: Are we there yet? Halfway across the Atlantic. Please let me know if you want to keep sailing or cut to the chase. Thanks.
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Heavy props to Re-Leaf at 1284 Mission @ 9th St., San Francisco, for dispensing a wide variety of high quality, fair trade herb. While small, they are a major market factor, keeping prices low as other dispensaries raise their rates. They've even been known to throw the occasional barbecue for the neighborhood. Stop by for a taste.
The Big Broadcast
(the continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
As usual Scorpio went to work after dinner and closed shop just in time to see the bar close. However Pack had taken to buying it by the bottle due to the bar's skimpy hours (4 to 5:30 and 7 to 10), so they settled down to talk it over. They looked for Garfunkel who was across the lounge, playing Scrabble with his collegiate table mates.
A small tribe, consisting of two very long haired cats, two madonna ladies in Rennaisance garb and two dogs, floated by. Scorpio was cornered by an elderly cat from D.C. who was a dedicated fucking racist. After hearing his opening rant earlier, Scorpio had avoided him as best he could--but there he was. Fred Hart was concerned about militant revolution and seemed to think that Scorpio had the answer. Scorpio, taken aback, knew what he could not say.
Pack was huddling with Garfunkel now. As he'd been closely involved with the music business, it gave them more than a few references in common. Again, the room thinned out about midnight, leaving ten or twelve troupers drinking, smoking and listening to Joe Cocker getting by.
Scorpio began talking to a couple of faces, namely Whiting and Mort. Whiting was nineteen and Canadian.He had a passive, shy hip--nice and easy... Scorpio liked his vibration right off. Mort was a little older and harder around the edges, the diamond glint in his eye reminding Scorpio of those types who always seemed to be the proprietors of head shops, or concert halls. He was a former student looking for export/import opportunites.
Both were agog at the adventure they had found On The Boat, reporting outlines of various scenes: the cat who was dealing lids, Whiting's photo of the tribal dogs copulating, the fact that everyone was on an indefinite trip, the fact that everyone was looking for some elusive further truth...Pack came over to Scorpio and asked if he'd like to hang inside. Scorpio excused himself and followed him back to the cabin. Garfunkle was there sipping a scotch. Some smoke magically appeared and Scorpio went next door for some cassettes.
While Monkey Man crashed along in true Stones fashion, Scorpio nursed his drink and sipped his tea. Then, as the first sweet choruses of You Can't Always Get What You Want began, he turned up the volume full blast. A bit of overkill that floored Garfunkel. When he came to he demanded to hear the rest of the Let It Bleed album immediately. As he listened he commented that he'd like to get that sound on some of his sides. He pulled some cassettes from his own stash. The first was Songs I Learned At My Father's Knee, by the Everley Brothers. Garfunkel reminisced that he'd been hung on the Everly Brothers all through high school, waiting impatiently for their new singles and buying them as soon as they were released. After the Everlies, Garfunkel laid a tape on the room that consisted of various things he liked: a couple of Larry Coryell cuts, the Stones' Sympathy For the Devil, his very favorite McCartney/Lennon song, Here There and Everywhere, and something intricate and majestic by a Hungarian Chorus.
Garfunkle and Scorpio went off to Abbey Road, wondering why such a fine piece of work was ripped and dismissed by the critics. They both agreed it was mostly side two, but the sheer flipped out, unprecedented brilliance of that side should have earned the Beatles more than an oh yeah.
Scorpio believed the critics were constantly shifting loyalties, as well as their integrity, to survive. First the artist is fawned upon, then yawned upon. More scotch was passed and Pack went into some old memories of Lenny Bruce in LA. Scorpio leaped to offer the Lenny tape he was holding. His sentimental favorite, the Frank Dell at the Palladium routine.
Pack wasn't familiar with the bit, but Garfunkel was very involved. Garfunkle told them that he and Paul blew riffs from that same Lenny solo between themselves, especially when they were on the road playing strange towns and strange rooms. In fact, he was carrying that very
Lenny Bruce album. Meanwhile the tape ran past Lenny into the Groupie album Scorpio had recorded as an off-the-wall slice of Americana. The album had been distributed mainly through mail order ads in papers like the Voice and the East Village Other, and was rumoured to have been produced by Frank Zappa. The record is a discussion/confession of the rock courtesan life style, by some the ladies who travel that road themselves, notably Cynthia Plaster Caster who takes plaster casts of rock cocks. A reality Scorpio saw as an extension of Lenny's absurd eye.. "the only people laughing were the two usherettes who balled everybody who played the theater,"
Lenny Bruce
from the Palladium routine
Garunkel was first taken by the rippling voice effect that started the round robin. And when the birds began to sing he was amazed. He wanted to know where he could grab this lurid prize. It was decided to transfer it to a blank tape. Scorpio did pause to reflect what type of groupies Paul and Garfunkle encountered. A poet and a one man band.
Next: The Big Broadcast Gets Bigger
Highly Recommended: Http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilmfilm/show
Author's Note: Are we there yet? Halfway across the Atlantic. Please let me know if you want to keep sailing or cut to the chase. Thanks.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Garfunkel's Secret Wish
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
News Of The Day: Of late, network TV journalism has degenerated to the point of simpering irrelevancy. Who wins American Idol or Dance With An Action Figure, is today considered real news. Almost any night in the Bay Area the lead story at 11 P.M.will be the rain, or snow in Tahoe. Next on the top ten is usually a lost cat or dog story. You won't hear anything about the outside world until well past the automobile ads.
However an even more alarming trend has reared its ugly head. Blatent commercials disguised as legitimate news stories. Example: On June 6 2012, local Channel 2, a Fox affiliate, aired a feature on new devolopments in hardening of the arteries and cholesterol. The first picture was of someone squeezing a human belly that had the consistency of white Jello. Fine. Then the medical story. Fine...Until they mmediately follow with an airy story that Alli weight loss pills won't be available for a few weeks due to a shortage of their active ingredient. Really? The newscaster noted that Alli is the only weight loss pill approved by the FDA. Oh, Really? Are you serious?
Channel 2 Fox News has sunk to a level of corruption that dishonors the profession of Journalism, and mocks the civic trust that allows them to exploit what are our public airways.
i highly recommend BBC.
On a brighter note, Washington D.C. has approved medical cannabis dispensaries. Six companies were selected to supply the clinics (hello corporate weed). One of the companies is partially owned by TV personality and cannabis advocate Montel Williams.
The Long Rap: Garfunkel's's Secret Wish
(the continuing day-to-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
As we smoked and talked, Garfunkel expanded on his feelings for the Beatles. As far as he was concerned they had done it neatly and completely. He considered Sgt. Pepper the turning point in Rock. As a producer as well as performer he had a profound admiration for the level of their artistry and the quality of their execution. He was most interested in Paul McCartney, believing that at this time it was Paul who was
keeping the band together. He confided that he would love to hang out with the Beatles for a couple of weeks--just to see where they were at.
Dig it.
Here was Garfunkel, a very heavy face on that very scene, having the same love affair with the Fantastic Four as any $4.99 customer. Garfunkle as the Fat Lady.
Pack, Garfunkel and Scorpio were leaning close, head to head, Pack rambling through street scenes, jail legends, movie gossip, rock gossip ( the fact that Bobby Darin had laid a song on Tim Hardin in return for swinging with Tim's If I Was a Carpenter), the prospects for Phil Spector and the Beatles, and the prospects of getting higher.
Now Pack wore a special ring, given to him by a Hopi, which is the symbol of The Keeper of The Flame. This was the man chosen to protect the tribal peyote mystics from being devoured by wild animals during their pilgrimage. As they voyage he keeps the camp fire burning strong enough to ward off the beast. And it was fitting that Pack wore the ring. He kept it light, bright, and always going up.
Garfunkel went into a deep riff concerning his love for J.S.Bach.
Get Bach? Incorrigible.
Suddenly Pack and Scorpio jerked their heads up, fixed eyes, then peered around the darkened lounge. The Boat had settled into a pleasant rhythm. Scattered through the room, forming a loose circle around them, a cluster of young faces were sitting in the gloom, listening intently.
Gerfunkel was talking about his relationship with Mike Nichols. He had spent the better part of a year working with the director on Catch 22. After finishing that Nichols offered him the costarring role in a two man movie. The other lead to be Jack Nicholson. A script by Jules Fieffer titled Carnal Knowledge.
Enormous.
It was decided to catch the sunrise and the three of them sniffed for that second wind and settled down to talking out the hour that remained. Scorpio fetched his Sony and a few cassettes. He played Magical Mystery Tour, both he and Garfunkel agreeing it was a much underplayed album. Scorpio admitted he mostly preferred it to Sgt. Pepper. Pack demanded The Band and got it. Old Jawbone himself.
Morning was coming on now and most of the young faces had drifted off. Only Rand was still hanging in. Rand of the extended bummer who now seemed peacefully relaxed. Garfunkel ventured that he sometimes thought of his career as a stroke of luck. He and Paul had been in Florida, scuffling for gigs, until they heard themselves on the radio and realized that something was happening.
Luck--or the Joker Man?
They all went out on the observation deck just off the lounge. It was raining softly. Light hovered over the horizon but it wasn't going to be a sunrise. As they stood at the rail Pack and Garfunkel goofed on the curvature of the Earth that you dig at sea.
"...Because the world is round
it turns me on...'
--The Beatles
Garfunkel was into mathematics and astronomy and played Moebius Strips with Scorpio while Pack went topside for a moment. He came rushing back. Seems that he found Blaine on the upper deck, huddled miserably in his sleeping bag. He had woken him and advised him to get in out of the rain. "Must be in training for his bike run to India," Pack commented.
Next: The Big Broadcast
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
News Of The Day: Of late, network TV journalism has degenerated to the point of simpering irrelevancy. Who wins American Idol or Dance With An Action Figure, is today considered real news. Almost any night in the Bay Area the lead story at 11 P.M.will be the rain, or snow in Tahoe. Next on the top ten is usually a lost cat or dog story. You won't hear anything about the outside world until well past the automobile ads.
However an even more alarming trend has reared its ugly head. Blatent commercials disguised as legitimate news stories. Example: On June 6 2012, local Channel 2, a Fox affiliate, aired a feature on new devolopments in hardening of the arteries and cholesterol. The first picture was of someone squeezing a human belly that had the consistency of white Jello. Fine. Then the medical story. Fine...Until they mmediately follow with an airy story that Alli weight loss pills won't be available for a few weeks due to a shortage of their active ingredient. Really? The newscaster noted that Alli is the only weight loss pill approved by the FDA. Oh, Really? Are you serious?
Channel 2 Fox News has sunk to a level of corruption that dishonors the profession of Journalism, and mocks the civic trust that allows them to exploit what are our public airways.
i highly recommend BBC.
On a brighter note, Washington D.C. has approved medical cannabis dispensaries. Six companies were selected to supply the clinics (hello corporate weed). One of the companies is partially owned by TV personality and cannabis advocate Montel Williams.
The Long Rap: Garfunkel's's Secret Wish
(the continuing day-to-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
As we smoked and talked, Garfunkel expanded on his feelings for the Beatles. As far as he was concerned they had done it neatly and completely. He considered Sgt. Pepper the turning point in Rock. As a producer as well as performer he had a profound admiration for the level of their artistry and the quality of their execution. He was most interested in Paul McCartney, believing that at this time it was Paul who was
keeping the band together. He confided that he would love to hang out with the Beatles for a couple of weeks--just to see where they were at.
Dig it.
Here was Garfunkel, a very heavy face on that very scene, having the same love affair with the Fantastic Four as any $4.99 customer. Garfunkle as the Fat Lady.
Pack, Garfunkel and Scorpio were leaning close, head to head, Pack rambling through street scenes, jail legends, movie gossip, rock gossip ( the fact that Bobby Darin had laid a song on Tim Hardin in return for swinging with Tim's If I Was a Carpenter), the prospects for Phil Spector and the Beatles, and the prospects of getting higher.
Now Pack wore a special ring, given to him by a Hopi, which is the symbol of The Keeper of The Flame. This was the man chosen to protect the tribal peyote mystics from being devoured by wild animals during their pilgrimage. As they voyage he keeps the camp fire burning strong enough to ward off the beast. And it was fitting that Pack wore the ring. He kept it light, bright, and always going up.
Garfunkel went into a deep riff concerning his love for J.S.Bach.
Get Bach? Incorrigible.
Suddenly Pack and Scorpio jerked their heads up, fixed eyes, then peered around the darkened lounge. The Boat had settled into a pleasant rhythm. Scattered through the room, forming a loose circle around them, a cluster of young faces were sitting in the gloom, listening intently.
Gerfunkel was talking about his relationship with Mike Nichols. He had spent the better part of a year working with the director on Catch 22. After finishing that Nichols offered him the costarring role in a two man movie. The other lead to be Jack Nicholson. A script by Jules Fieffer titled Carnal Knowledge.
Enormous.
It was decided to catch the sunrise and the three of them sniffed for that second wind and settled down to talking out the hour that remained. Scorpio fetched his Sony and a few cassettes. He played Magical Mystery Tour, both he and Garfunkel agreeing it was a much underplayed album. Scorpio admitted he mostly preferred it to Sgt. Pepper. Pack demanded The Band and got it. Old Jawbone himself.
Morning was coming on now and most of the young faces had drifted off. Only Rand was still hanging in. Rand of the extended bummer who now seemed peacefully relaxed. Garfunkel ventured that he sometimes thought of his career as a stroke of luck. He and Paul had been in Florida, scuffling for gigs, until they heard themselves on the radio and realized that something was happening.
Luck--or the Joker Man?
They all went out on the observation deck just off the lounge. It was raining softly. Light hovered over the horizon but it wasn't going to be a sunrise. As they stood at the rail Pack and Garfunkel goofed on the curvature of the Earth that you dig at sea.
"...Because the world is round
it turns me on...'
--The Beatles
Garfunkel was into mathematics and astronomy and played Moebius Strips with Scorpio while Pack went topside for a moment. He came rushing back. Seems that he found Blaine on the upper deck, huddled miserably in his sleeping bag. He had woken him and advised him to get in out of the rain. "Must be in training for his bike run to India," Pack commented.
Next: The Big Broadcast
Monday, June 4, 2012
Garfunkel Speaks Out
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render cridical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
A Radical Solution: Speaking of NYC's Mayor Bloomberg (see last post)... Not content with his edicts supressing personal freedom, the emperor has decreed that from henceforth to the end of earthly time, Supersized Soft Drinks will be banned in the Apple. Now i don't smoke tobacco, rarely drink sodas, and am no fan of obesity but i am a dedicated fan of personal freedom. Right up there with Francois Voltaire. And think about it, is this all the billionaire--albiet short--Mayor of the most powerful city in the world, has on his mind?
Perhaps thats why Wall Street resembles old Rome when the lions were in town.
And without a doubt that's why our planet is reeling right now. Our leaders are greedy, incompetent clowns with no vision beyond their own selfish interests. At least half of American politicians deride education as being somehow elitist, anti-Christian, and the gateway to gay marriage. Real men, like Governor Perry of Texas, are bone ignorant. Can you say...Dark Ages?
Do i have a solution? Maybe. It is a tad rad but it makes logical sense.
Pass a law requiring All Elected Officials To Undergo Mandatory Drug Tests.
After all, these are the people who can do society the most harm. Not our athletes who are basically entertainers. Most civilian employees today have to show proof of their sobriety--why not our congressmen, senators, and mayors? Then we'll know which decisions are based on which drug, be it alcohol ( a heavy favorite with the Boehner crowd), Valium, (most anybody on the Hill), the infamous Oxy (see Rush Limbaugh), Meth (Sara Palin resides in a the Meth capitol of Alaska), and on...As Rosanne once said: "The drug war is about people on prescription drugs chasing people on street drugs."
( our upcoming show in San Francisco)
poster by Jerry Boxley
The Long Rap: Garfunkel Speaks Out
( the continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
A theme kept repeating throughout the conversation; Pack, Garfunkel and Scorpio were waiting for new developments and looking at the current crop of recruits with curiosity. The young faces were earnest. Yes. Sincere. Yes. Smarter, better informed, more receptive than any previous generation. Absolutely. But it would take time to see what kind of wit they would devise. For real style implies skill used with honor.
All through a rap that covered everything from Garfunkel's new movie projects, to the new consciousness, and bases between, Scorpio's respect for the performer's head mounted. Garfunkel listened carefully, and responded from a chord level more reminiscent of a philosopher than singer.Anyway, Scorpio had always considered Simon and Garfunkle consummate poets. The art of the word in it's ultimate form--music.
Garfunkel had come across The Boat through some nameless hip secretary at Columbia Records. No doubt one of those New York superbirds who zing choice cuts of priviliged information across the city, creating the current for the dynamo, Scorpio flashed, studying the dark water.
Garfunkel had never traveled by sea, had some time between commitments, and just decided to go the frieghter route. Of course Scorpio had to lay it down. The Legend of The Yugoslavian Line. Garfunkel was most interested in this which emboldened Scorpio to press his obsession with the mind evolution routine. How at one point in time, thousands of heads began to create a new theatre of consciousness. Those years from '60 to '68. It was his further fantasy that certain minds were in advanced stages of devolopment. Where man became the director--controlling evolution rather than reflecting its process.
Garfunkel admitted that he had felt a great energy surge in San Francisco, '63 to '68, which had carried him up then receded. This was one of the reasons for his voyage.
"I wanted to take my time and get back to basic things," he explained.
"Get back,' said Scorpio.
Garfunkle dug and smiled.
Far Out. Garfunkel had also felt a diminishing of energy.
Scorpio than began a spiel on the Knight Errants of consciousness. The high people who seem to specialize in igniting minds. He went back to scenes in 1961 East Village, and then remembered someone.
"Ever met Shawn Phillips?" Scorpio asked.
"Shawn Phillips?" Garfunkel came back, "He took me on my first acid trip."
Synch. Scorpio's premise was suddenly clear to Garfunkel.
Next: Garfunkel's Secret Wish.
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render cridical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
A Radical Solution: Speaking of NYC's Mayor Bloomberg (see last post)... Not content with his edicts supressing personal freedom, the emperor has decreed that from henceforth to the end of earthly time, Supersized Soft Drinks will be banned in the Apple. Now i don't smoke tobacco, rarely drink sodas, and am no fan of obesity but i am a dedicated fan of personal freedom. Right up there with Francois Voltaire. And think about it, is this all the billionaire--albiet short--Mayor of the most powerful city in the world, has on his mind?
Perhaps thats why Wall Street resembles old Rome when the lions were in town.
And without a doubt that's why our planet is reeling right now. Our leaders are greedy, incompetent clowns with no vision beyond their own selfish interests. At least half of American politicians deride education as being somehow elitist, anti-Christian, and the gateway to gay marriage. Real men, like Governor Perry of Texas, are bone ignorant. Can you say...Dark Ages?
Do i have a solution? Maybe. It is a tad rad but it makes logical sense.
Pass a law requiring All Elected Officials To Undergo Mandatory Drug Tests.
After all, these are the people who can do society the most harm. Not our athletes who are basically entertainers. Most civilian employees today have to show proof of their sobriety--why not our congressmen, senators, and mayors? Then we'll know which decisions are based on which drug, be it alcohol ( a heavy favorite with the Boehner crowd), Valium, (most anybody on the Hill), the infamous Oxy (see Rush Limbaugh), Meth (Sara Palin resides in a the Meth capitol of Alaska), and on...As Rosanne once said: "The drug war is about people on prescription drugs chasing people on street drugs."
poster by Jerry Boxley
The Long Rap: Garfunkel Speaks Out
( the continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
A theme kept repeating throughout the conversation; Pack, Garfunkel and Scorpio were waiting for new developments and looking at the current crop of recruits with curiosity. The young faces were earnest. Yes. Sincere. Yes. Smarter, better informed, more receptive than any previous generation. Absolutely. But it would take time to see what kind of wit they would devise. For real style implies skill used with honor.
All through a rap that covered everything from Garfunkel's new movie projects, to the new consciousness, and bases between, Scorpio's respect for the performer's head mounted. Garfunkel listened carefully, and responded from a chord level more reminiscent of a philosopher than singer.Anyway, Scorpio had always considered Simon and Garfunkle consummate poets. The art of the word in it's ultimate form--music.
Garfunkel had come across The Boat through some nameless hip secretary at Columbia Records. No doubt one of those New York superbirds who zing choice cuts of priviliged information across the city, creating the current for the dynamo, Scorpio flashed, studying the dark water.
Garfunkel had never traveled by sea, had some time between commitments, and just decided to go the frieghter route. Of course Scorpio had to lay it down. The Legend of The Yugoslavian Line. Garfunkel was most interested in this which emboldened Scorpio to press his obsession with the mind evolution routine. How at one point in time, thousands of heads began to create a new theatre of consciousness. Those years from '60 to '68. It was his further fantasy that certain minds were in advanced stages of devolopment. Where man became the director--controlling evolution rather than reflecting its process.
Garfunkel admitted that he had felt a great energy surge in San Francisco, '63 to '68, which had carried him up then receded. This was one of the reasons for his voyage.
"I wanted to take my time and get back to basic things," he explained.
"Get back,' said Scorpio.
Garfunkle dug and smiled.
Far Out. Garfunkel had also felt a diminishing of energy.
Scorpio than began a spiel on the Knight Errants of consciousness. The high people who seem to specialize in igniting minds. He went back to scenes in 1961 East Village, and then remembered someone.
"Ever met Shawn Phillips?" Scorpio asked.
"Shawn Phillips?" Garfunkel came back, "He took me on my first acid trip."
Synch. Scorpio's premise was suddenly clear to Garfunkel.
Next: Garfunkel's Secret Wish.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Garfunkel Speaks
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Parallel Universes: In the three years since Mayor Bloomberg installed himself for an unprecedented third term--an instituted his now infamous "Stop-and-Frisk" law-- there have been over 700,00 cases of random, victimless, crimefree, examples of NYPD storm trooper tactics against citizens based on what? Profiling at best--good old fashioned racism at worst (over 85% of those frisked are black or hispanic). It's a law that invites shakedowns and extortion and brings out the seamy underside of law enforcement. The law as an excuse to do harm. Now as you might imagine, this law especially targets those New Yorkers who enjoy the benefits of the sacred herb. Arrests for small amounts of cannabis (as small as one joint) have gone up significantly thus needlessly criminalizing a wide range of otherwise innocent citizens.
But what can you expect of a billionaire mayor who made it illegal to have an ashtray in your own office?
At the same time as Bloomberg exhibits his contempt for the Constitution, New York term limits, US Civil Rights, property rights, personal rights, and plain old stay-the-fuck-out-of-my-private-life rights--a sitting New York judge, now stricken with cancer, has published an imassioned plea for medical cannabis. In the New York Times ( May 17, 2012). Gustin L. Reichbach, justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, writes in part: "Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice I feel obilged to speak out as both a judge and as a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease...Medical science has not yet found a cure but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering."
Mayor Bloomberg seems to be living in a universe parallel to the rest of humanity..
The Long Rap: Garfunkel Speaks
(The continuing day-to-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
The next day dawned bright and exceedingly clear.
Mysterious Traveling Companion was making her first lunch, and Scorpio sat down refreshed and ready. After lunch MTC, Pack and Tina went up on deck to get some rays while Scorpio took care of business.
When Scorpio emerged he automatically went up to the third deck--where all the action had taken place on his previous voyage. When he got there he found a commune circle of young faces, all in costume and getting high. Groovy, but Scorpio didn't see any of his tribe until he looked over the rail and saw them snoozing on the second tier. For the rest of the afternoon the four of them giggled, played games, swung on the pipes, hamboned, and generally got themselves at one with the sea and the sun. After which they repaired to the lounge for drinks before dinner. Relaxed and happy Scorpio nursed a campari and watched people move through the room. Garfunkel came in and sat across from him. Somehow the conversation sputtered, coughed, and hit a connection.
Garfunkel was carrying a Sony 134 cassette player, just like Scorpio. However Garfunkel was unaware of the rechargeable battery and had neglected to bring the right plug. He wasn't prepared for the boat's European voltage. Consequently he was hauling a huge box of batteries which were fading fast.Scorpio took him back to his cabin to show him the arrangement.
Inside Garfunkel accepted a smoke and they sat back, beginning a low key rap about Sonys and differences in current while they listened to The Band.
At that point Pack came in and sat down.
Garfunkel was formal but funny. Earlier when he entered he had put MTC way on by announcing,"This room is filthy." He was especially curious about the palm slapping, non-verbal,
punning nature of their relationship. He was quick to say that try as he might, he had no clue to where the college faces he dined with, were at. But he was enjoying the challenge, like learning another language.
The dinner bell rang.
Pack, who was still drinking, and earlier had been fed a noseful of meth by a passing friend on deck was warmed up, ready to skip dinner and keep rapping. Both Scorpio and Garfunkel passed, being hungry and cautious. Through dinner however the pattern intensified, threads of thoughts and possibilities WRAPPING Pack and Scorpio into a cozy cocoon of consciousness--the conversation taking the shape of a busy acid trip.
Throughout Pack kept goofing with Tina, their relationship straight out of a scene between Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont. Groucho leering, flicking his cigar and throwing, "How's your girdle countess?" over his shoulder as Margaret Dumont faints into the arms of the Asmerian ambassador. Tina however was with it, ultimately unworried and just boomed a big glad laugh everytime Pack decided to lay some intimate detail of their relationship on the table. Sometimes, between courses, she might revert to type and remind Pack of certain elementary rules of etiquette such as, "Don't nod at the table, Pack."
After dinner, sitting in the lounge, Pack and Scorpio considered the young faces On The Boat. Pack likened them to a bunch of rookies huddled in the belly of a plane flying over Fort Bragg, North Carolina, nervously waiting to make their first jump.
Through the evening Scorio ran some thoughts down with various and sundry troopers, always getting around to the reason they took this particular ship.The answer was uniform. Word of mouth had it that this was a cheap, interesting way to go. And the fact that it was--even as they spoke--heading for Tangier. These were the prime considerations. None of them had been aware that the Boat itself would be a special scene.
Gradually the room thinned out. Someone turned the lights down and the record player up.The smoke began to pass from hand to hand. Garfunkle wandered over holding a glass. He sat down and asked if he might have some scotch. In a short time Garfunkel, Scorpio and Pack slipped into an easy building rap. Scorpio was gassed to find Garfunkel had a jazz ear, and was a firm Beatle fan. Firm.
Next: Garfunkel Speaks Out
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Parallel Universes: In the three years since Mayor Bloomberg installed himself for an unprecedented third term--an instituted his now infamous "Stop-and-Frisk" law-- there have been over 700,00 cases of random, victimless, crimefree, examples of NYPD storm trooper tactics against citizens based on what? Profiling at best--good old fashioned racism at worst (over 85% of those frisked are black or hispanic). It's a law that invites shakedowns and extortion and brings out the seamy underside of law enforcement. The law as an excuse to do harm. Now as you might imagine, this law especially targets those New Yorkers who enjoy the benefits of the sacred herb. Arrests for small amounts of cannabis (as small as one joint) have gone up significantly thus needlessly criminalizing a wide range of otherwise innocent citizens.
But what can you expect of a billionaire mayor who made it illegal to have an ashtray in your own office?
At the same time as Bloomberg exhibits his contempt for the Constitution, New York term limits, US Civil Rights, property rights, personal rights, and plain old stay-the-fuck-out-of-my-private-life rights--a sitting New York judge, now stricken with cancer, has published an imassioned plea for medical cannabis. In the New York Times ( May 17, 2012). Gustin L. Reichbach, justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, writes in part: "Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice I feel obilged to speak out as both a judge and as a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease...Medical science has not yet found a cure but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering."
Mayor Bloomberg seems to be living in a universe parallel to the rest of humanity..
The Long Rap: Garfunkel Speaks
(The continuing day-to-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage to Tangier)
The next day dawned bright and exceedingly clear.
Mysterious Traveling Companion was making her first lunch, and Scorpio sat down refreshed and ready. After lunch MTC, Pack and Tina went up on deck to get some rays while Scorpio took care of business.
When Scorpio emerged he automatically went up to the third deck--where all the action had taken place on his previous voyage. When he got there he found a commune circle of young faces, all in costume and getting high. Groovy, but Scorpio didn't see any of his tribe until he looked over the rail and saw them snoozing on the second tier. For the rest of the afternoon the four of them giggled, played games, swung on the pipes, hamboned, and generally got themselves at one with the sea and the sun. After which they repaired to the lounge for drinks before dinner. Relaxed and happy Scorpio nursed a campari and watched people move through the room. Garfunkel came in and sat across from him. Somehow the conversation sputtered, coughed, and hit a connection.
Garfunkel was carrying a Sony 134 cassette player, just like Scorpio. However Garfunkel was unaware of the rechargeable battery and had neglected to bring the right plug. He wasn't prepared for the boat's European voltage. Consequently he was hauling a huge box of batteries which were fading fast.Scorpio took him back to his cabin to show him the arrangement.
Inside Garfunkel accepted a smoke and they sat back, beginning a low key rap about Sonys and differences in current while they listened to The Band.
At that point Pack came in and sat down.
Garfunkel was formal but funny. Earlier when he entered he had put MTC way on by announcing,"This room is filthy." He was especially curious about the palm slapping, non-verbal,
punning nature of their relationship. He was quick to say that try as he might, he had no clue to where the college faces he dined with, were at. But he was enjoying the challenge, like learning another language.
The dinner bell rang.
Pack, who was still drinking, and earlier had been fed a noseful of meth by a passing friend on deck was warmed up, ready to skip dinner and keep rapping. Both Scorpio and Garfunkel passed, being hungry and cautious. Through dinner however the pattern intensified, threads of thoughts and possibilities WRAPPING Pack and Scorpio into a cozy cocoon of consciousness--the conversation taking the shape of a busy acid trip.
Throughout Pack kept goofing with Tina, their relationship straight out of a scene between Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont. Groucho leering, flicking his cigar and throwing, "How's your girdle countess?" over his shoulder as Margaret Dumont faints into the arms of the Asmerian ambassador. Tina however was with it, ultimately unworried and just boomed a big glad laugh everytime Pack decided to lay some intimate detail of their relationship on the table. Sometimes, between courses, she might revert to type and remind Pack of certain elementary rules of etiquette such as, "Don't nod at the table, Pack."
After dinner, sitting in the lounge, Pack and Scorpio considered the young faces On The Boat. Pack likened them to a bunch of rookies huddled in the belly of a plane flying over Fort Bragg, North Carolina, nervously waiting to make their first jump.
Through the evening Scorio ran some thoughts down with various and sundry troopers, always getting around to the reason they took this particular ship.The answer was uniform. Word of mouth had it that this was a cheap, interesting way to go. And the fact that it was--even as they spoke--heading for Tangier. These were the prime considerations. None of them had been aware that the Boat itself would be a special scene.
Gradually the room thinned out. Someone turned the lights down and the record player up.The smoke began to pass from hand to hand. Garfunkle wandered over holding a glass. He sat down and asked if he might have some scotch. In a short time Garfunkel, Scorpio and Pack slipped into an easy building rap. Scorpio was gassed to find Garfunkel had a jazz ear, and was a firm Beatle fan. Firm.
Next: Garfunkel Speaks Out
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The Long Rap
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Random Tokes: Only in music or sport, does the spirit of cooperation become sublimely manifest. Sadly, it is rare. Like someone wrote in my first grade report card "does not live up to his potential". Can you imagine? i was six. It seems P.S. 186 used the same scale they use in the NFL. Which brings me to my point:--humanity walks a tightrope between cooperation and competion. It's in our DNA and it is this crucial balance we must find before we eventually fall off the evolutionary ladder.
The Fat Lady is sitting in the cheap seats--a true fan. And she doesn't like losers.
The Long Rap
(The continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage from New York to Tangier)
Okay.
The sea was calmer, but still unsettled enough to keep the stomach queasy.
The lounge was beginning to look like a student union. Young faces into bags that ranged from Early Flower Power to Medical Student Weird. There were three or four loose chicks but few of the thirty odd cats seemed to have eyes. Records by Dylan, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and Paco Loco appeared but the ship's box wasn't working.
All opening conversations revealed the same fact--everyone was on an indefinite trip. No one had a specific destination beyond Tangier.
On the tables were books by Hesse (all his works including a volume of his letters to Jung), and a few by Kurt Vonnegut. The older crowd was reading The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Scorpio had a disconcerting talk with a young, Warholish, gay cat named Rand who seemed to be on some sort of extended bummer. Rand asked questions like, "Do you think you're happy? Do you think you could be freaked out?" and the like, at an intense rate, lapsing into frequent paranoid flashes.
Scorpio was careful, treating Rand as he would an an acid head gone wrong, and he seemed to smooth out. Dinner then, continuing as before with Pack and Scorpio spinning out the message--the old days, pre-media packaging. They ran it down from Cambridge '60, San Francisco, Woodstock, Claremont, NYC, London, Greece, Beirut, back to LA.
All the heroes of all the beat trips that ended up as comic beads in the Great Game. That very game that exploded spontaneously in the minds of a thousand Johnny Appleseeds who spread the Word that had finally made a dent in America's beautiful skin. The game as music, made by Pack's special friends: Momma Cass, Fred Neal, Janis, John Sebastian, Jim Kweskin, David Crosby, Ginger Baker, Lennon and on--crossing at the switches with Scorpio's people.The Platonic conversation began to take on the dimensions of a speed marathon accelerating toward some distant meaning.
They drank a little scotch after dinner and included some other faces in the festivities. At first the three young
men who joined them were dubious--Pack and Scorpio seemed up to no good. Some down home riffs cleared the air. A cat with waist length hair and a full, funky rabbi beard sailed by, a dog at his bare heels, middle period East Village commune: Krishna chapter. The older folks glowered.
The talk came round to guitars and Pack went inside to get his axe. Gene, a burly, bearded dude with the benign look of a social worker joined in. He wasn't actually a caseworker, being late of market research, but he was holding twelve--12 mind you--mouth harps. A youngster named Fred, a member of a group called Honest John, produced a guitar and a man called David, who looked like a rangy verion of the What Me Worry character sat in.
Pack, who plays harp better than guitar, picked up on Gene's harmonies and began to wail, really putting energy into it. Honest Fred, done up stone country in an old suit coat, long rubber boots over his jeans--began some soft riffs behind him. They milled around musically for a half hour, every so often hitting on something then letting it pass. Pack was just laughing, putting on his fellow musicians, blaming them for his bad licks, complaining about the quality of the harps, dipping his harp in a glass of water, slapping it against his thigh and blowing a funky call to fun. David started playing and singing solo. His chops were nice and when he sang his what-me-worry features became handsome.
Garfunkel shuffled in and everyone discretely put aside his axe and began doing something else.
Next: Garfunkel Speaks
(author's note: At this point everyone has gotten a bird's eye view of travel by freighter at the end of the sixties. Right now we are at page 14 of a 50-page log. Not wishing to bore my few but precious readers with rock gossip and hippy trivia i'm inclined to stop reprinting the ship's log and cut to the chase if you wish. So all of you reading this please send me your Vote--and my next post will reflect your opinion.)
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Random Tokes: Only in music or sport, does the spirit of cooperation become sublimely manifest. Sadly, it is rare. Like someone wrote in my first grade report card "does not live up to his potential". Can you imagine? i was six. It seems P.S. 186 used the same scale they use in the NFL. Which brings me to my point:--humanity walks a tightrope between cooperation and competion. It's in our DNA and it is this crucial balance we must find before we eventually fall off the evolutionary ladder.
The Fat Lady is sitting in the cheap seats--a true fan. And she doesn't like losers.
The Long Rap
(The continuing day-by-day log of a 1970 freighter voyage from New York to Tangier)
Okay.
The sea was calmer, but still unsettled enough to keep the stomach queasy.
The lounge was beginning to look like a student union. Young faces into bags that ranged from Early Flower Power to Medical Student Weird. There were three or four loose chicks but few of the thirty odd cats seemed to have eyes. Records by Dylan, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and Paco Loco appeared but the ship's box wasn't working.
All opening conversations revealed the same fact--everyone was on an indefinite trip. No one had a specific destination beyond Tangier.
On the tables were books by Hesse (all his works including a volume of his letters to Jung), and a few by Kurt Vonnegut. The older crowd was reading The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Scorpio had a disconcerting talk with a young, Warholish, gay cat named Rand who seemed to be on some sort of extended bummer. Rand asked questions like, "Do you think you're happy? Do you think you could be freaked out?" and the like, at an intense rate, lapsing into frequent paranoid flashes.
Scorpio was careful, treating Rand as he would an an acid head gone wrong, and he seemed to smooth out. Dinner then, continuing as before with Pack and Scorpio spinning out the message--the old days, pre-media packaging. They ran it down from Cambridge '60, San Francisco, Woodstock, Claremont, NYC, London, Greece, Beirut, back to LA.
All the heroes of all the beat trips that ended up as comic beads in the Great Game. That very game that exploded spontaneously in the minds of a thousand Johnny Appleseeds who spread the Word that had finally made a dent in America's beautiful skin. The game as music, made by Pack's special friends: Momma Cass, Fred Neal, Janis, John Sebastian, Jim Kweskin, David Crosby, Ginger Baker, Lennon and on--crossing at the switches with Scorpio's people.The Platonic conversation began to take on the dimensions of a speed marathon accelerating toward some distant meaning.
They drank a little scotch after dinner and included some other faces in the festivities. At first the three young
men who joined them were dubious--Pack and Scorpio seemed up to no good. Some down home riffs cleared the air. A cat with waist length hair and a full, funky rabbi beard sailed by, a dog at his bare heels, middle period East Village commune: Krishna chapter. The older folks glowered.
The talk came round to guitars and Pack went inside to get his axe. Gene, a burly, bearded dude with the benign look of a social worker joined in. He wasn't actually a caseworker, being late of market research, but he was holding twelve--12 mind you--mouth harps. A youngster named Fred, a member of a group called Honest John, produced a guitar and a man called David, who looked like a rangy verion of the What Me Worry character sat in.
Pack, who plays harp better than guitar, picked up on Gene's harmonies and began to wail, really putting energy into it. Honest Fred, done up stone country in an old suit coat, long rubber boots over his jeans--began some soft riffs behind him. They milled around musically for a half hour, every so often hitting on something then letting it pass. Pack was just laughing, putting on his fellow musicians, blaming them for his bad licks, complaining about the quality of the harps, dipping his harp in a glass of water, slapping it against his thigh and blowing a funky call to fun. David started playing and singing solo. His chops were nice and when he sang his what-me-worry features became handsome.
Garfunkel shuffled in and everyone discretely put aside his axe and began doing something else.
Next: Garfunkel Speaks
(author's note: At this point everyone has gotten a bird's eye view of travel by freighter at the end of the sixties. Right now we are at page 14 of a 50-page log. Not wishing to bore my few but precious readers with rock gossip and hippy trivia i'm inclined to stop reprinting the ship's log and cut to the chase if you wish. So all of you reading this please send me your Vote--and my next post will reflect your opinion.)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Mindless Oppression In The USA
The Work Ethic
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Melinda Haag, US attorney for Northern California, who is conducting the inquisition and suppression of Medical Cannabis, refuses to address the issue of lost jobs, lost advertising revenue and lost taxes. Rather, she parrots the Reefer Madness party line, stating that her office received "many phone calls, letters and e-mails from people who are deeply troubled by the tremendous growth of the marijuana industry and its influence on their communities."
As we all know this is pure horse hockey. What about the influence of the alcohol industry?
What about those lost jobs at Christmas time? What about the community services that the marijuana industry supports? And dammit, what about all those sick patients Melinda? Its time to phone, write and e-mail Melinda Haag and tell her how deeply troubled we all are by her uninformed, insensitive, and downright unAmerican actions.
Meddling Melinda has already caused three fine clinics to close their doors. One of them,
Medithrive, wisely shifted to a home delivery service. Check their menu online then call 415-562-6334. You'll find they're both prompt and polite and serve up the same high quality boo that made them a San Francisco favorite.
The Work Ethic
From my first day at Bantam Books i morphed from grasshopper to worker ant. i assiduously read all the books scheduled for jacket copy, as well as novels in the slush pile ( unsolicited manuscripts ). i've been blessed with the ability to read quickly which served me in good stead. At my peak i was reading 3 books a day and one at night after work. My writing skills were getting stronger thanks to HB's generous tutelage, and i was receiving accolades and pay raises regularly. i was also discovering that my hippy-influenced, out-of-the-box ideas were solid moneymakers in the real marketplace. Around that time i worked up enough confidence to tackle my first novel. i had absorbed enough raw manuscripts to know what one should look like. And so, every night after work, i would write three to five pages of Doctor Orient, a novel about a character i'd been contemplating since my voyages to Baalbek. Dr O was a telepath and occult adept who embodied the spiritual and cultural values of the psychedelic era. In this new wave thriller i could expound philosophical theories that would otherwise prompt people to signal for the check. i told no one about the project and the secret seemed to feed my efforts. At the time i was casting about for an agent and contacted Owen Laster at William Morris who had seen, and liked, some of my earlier cabaret sketches. Owen told me the psychic investigator concept would never work. Motivated, i named my character Dr. Owen Orient and went on. My first draft was a tad skimpy but Mark Jaffe, editor in chief at Bantam, thought i might be "on to something". It was all the encouragement i needed. Still keeping mum about the book i went about a rewrite--and found it surprisingly rewarding. About that time i had an idea for a an original Bantam book that would stimulate younger readers to appreciate poetry. Titled The Poetry of Rock it would be a collection of 60's rock lyrics, which had evolved way beyond the June, moon, spoon, school of croon. HB was right there with it and we made our pitch to Mark who gave it the green light. We decided to contact Richard Goldstein a fledgling rock music critic (there were very few in '68 ) who ran a column called Pop Eye in the Village Voice. Richard would write the introduction and choose the lyrics. Later his introduction was featured in Life magazine. Unfortunately it fell on HB alone to actually acquire the lyrics from the maze of music publishers and distributors who held the rights. However that book i thought up and HB worked so hard on, The Poetry of Rock. is still in print forty years later.
Oh yeah... the reason HB had to carry the load alone was that an advertising agency made me an offer i couldn't refuse...
Recommended Reading: The Poetry of Rock edited by Richard Goldstein
Recommended Listening: Lostintheunderground. com
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."
Heads Up: Melinda Haag, US attorney for Northern California, who is conducting the inquisition and suppression of Medical Cannabis, refuses to address the issue of lost jobs, lost advertising revenue and lost taxes. Rather, she parrots the Reefer Madness party line, stating that her office received "many phone calls, letters and e-mails from people who are deeply troubled by the tremendous growth of the marijuana industry and its influence on their communities."
As we all know this is pure horse hockey. What about the influence of the alcohol industry?
What about those lost jobs at Christmas time? What about the community services that the marijuana industry supports? And dammit, what about all those sick patients Melinda? Its time to phone, write and e-mail Melinda Haag and tell her how deeply troubled we all are by her uninformed, insensitive, and downright unAmerican actions.
Meddling Melinda has already caused three fine clinics to close their doors. One of them,
Medithrive, wisely shifted to a home delivery service. Check their menu online then call 415-562-6334. You'll find they're both prompt and polite and serve up the same high quality boo that made them a San Francisco favorite.
The Work Ethic
From my first day at Bantam Books i morphed from grasshopper to worker ant. i assiduously read all the books scheduled for jacket copy, as well as novels in the slush pile ( unsolicited manuscripts ). i've been blessed with the ability to read quickly which served me in good stead. At my peak i was reading 3 books a day and one at night after work. My writing skills were getting stronger thanks to HB's generous tutelage, and i was receiving accolades and pay raises regularly. i was also discovering that my hippy-influenced, out-of-the-box ideas were solid moneymakers in the real marketplace. Around that time i worked up enough confidence to tackle my first novel. i had absorbed enough raw manuscripts to know what one should look like. And so, every night after work, i would write three to five pages of Doctor Orient, a novel about a character i'd been contemplating since my voyages to Baalbek. Dr O was a telepath and occult adept who embodied the spiritual and cultural values of the psychedelic era. In this new wave thriller i could expound philosophical theories that would otherwise prompt people to signal for the check. i told no one about the project and the secret seemed to feed my efforts. At the time i was casting about for an agent and contacted Owen Laster at William Morris who had seen, and liked, some of my earlier cabaret sketches. Owen told me the psychic investigator concept would never work. Motivated, i named my character Dr. Owen Orient and went on. My first draft was a tad skimpy but Mark Jaffe, editor in chief at Bantam, thought i might be "on to something". It was all the encouragement i needed. Still keeping mum about the book i went about a rewrite--and found it surprisingly rewarding. About that time i had an idea for a an original Bantam book that would stimulate younger readers to appreciate poetry. Titled The Poetry of Rock it would be a collection of 60's rock lyrics, which had evolved way beyond the June, moon, spoon, school of croon. HB was right there with it and we made our pitch to Mark who gave it the green light. We decided to contact Richard Goldstein a fledgling rock music critic (there were very few in '68 ) who ran a column called Pop Eye in the Village Voice. Richard would write the introduction and choose the lyrics. Later his introduction was featured in Life magazine. Unfortunately it fell on HB alone to actually acquire the lyrics from the maze of music publishers and distributors who held the rights. However that book i thought up and HB worked so hard on, The Poetry of Rock. is still in print forty years later.
Oh yeah... the reason HB had to carry the load alone was that an advertising agency made me an offer i couldn't refuse...
Recommended Reading: The Poetry of Rock edited by Richard Goldstein
Recommended Listening: Lostintheunderground. com
Getting Into The Wind
Time Capsule 1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
Another Moment of Terrifying Clarity: Just a thought. Our Supreme Court in it's wisdom, deemed corporations have the same rights as people. However corporations don't pay people taxes. They have corporate exemptions. So it seems logical to sue corporations for the return of said exemption money to the U.S.Treasury-not to mention the IRS. After all, it's for exactly the same reason--disallowing normal corporate exemptions claimed by our cannabis dispensaries--that the IRS is going after them. Meanwhile they are not above accepting tax money from what they claim is an illegal enterprise. Where is Zorro when we need him?
Author's note: The following is sort of a digression from my usual first person recollections. However since it was written on the spot, day-to-day, i felt it might be useful to know what it was really like to be part of this still-unequalled cultural movement--if only to understand motivations that might seem reckless in today's corporate society..
And while we are all here it seems like a good time to thank my friend, consigliere, and editor on this rambling oral journey--Robert Gilman...
Getting Into The Wind
( continuing my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier)
Saturday morning, the 18th of Febuary, Scorpio woke to the throb of the ship pulling out. He got up, took a peek out the porthole, and went back to sleep. As far as he was concerned the boat started sailing days ago. That afternoon Scorpio went to lunch alone. Mysterious Traveling Companion was out of commision due to flu and couldn't leave her cabin. A classic ploy.
Lunch was sparse, only Pack and Tina, a few of the old folks, and two of the collegians across the hall. Things picked up in the lounge after lunch. Scorpio ran into a face he knew. Blaine was a waiter at one of his favorite neighborhood hangouts. He was taking his BMW to Yugoslavia and making a run to India.
A young girl wandered in holding a recorder. She sat down and began blowing soft, mournful notes.
Pack drifted by from a conversation with a cat with an FBI haircut and a wild backwoods gleam in his eye. The man was fresh off an Alaskan oil rig and bound for some speculation in Morocco. Pack and Blaine talked motorcycles for a while. Then Blaine went out to check his bike's rigging while Pack and Scorpio shook their heads, knowing what the other was thinking. They start out for India with some spare parts and a map. Later you catch them in Istanbul wheeling a bent frame and holding a clutch cable in their trembling hand.
"Wait man," Pack snapped his fingers gleefully, "that's when it's just getting to be FUN." Although both agreed Blaine was cool they later discovered he had never broken down his bike. He'd watched someone do it and figured he'd learn as he went. Pack nodded sagely, aware necessity was a sharp spur but nonetheless offered to go over the machine with Blaine when the weather settled.
For at this point the sea was fitful--and quickly getting worse. The ship was rocking...and rolling--no stabilizers on a frieghter, so...it was time to read.
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test concerned itself with some of the matters Scorpio had been meditating on this trip. Are you off the bus--or On The Boat?
Outside the weather was building into a serious storm.
That night at dinner it was tough keeping food on the table. The steward battened down the portholes with a worried look on his usually impassive face. At Scorpio's table Tina and Pack were discovering there was no way to eat on a ship pitching like Warren Spahn (who used to lean wayyy back, his foot straight up in the air before he threw) so talk was muted.
It was useless to do anything but get into your bunk and cool it.
The waves got ever wilder with each hour however, and Scorpio was reduced to gritting his teeth as he watched the curtains lift almost parallel to the floor with each immense heave of the ship. For the next two days the Tuhobic continued to struggle through high, dangerous seas. Passengers were forbidden on the upper decks. Objects flew around the cabin at will. The steward wet down the tablecloth to keep the plates from sliding. Transferring food to mouth was a major logistic problem.
But finally, one morning the weather broke.
It was reasonable. Objects remained in a fixed position. Plates of food remained still long enough for one to spear a bite or two. Scorpio arrived at lunch refreshed by his first eight hour sleep in two days. Garfunkle was there, having made all the meals, as had Pack and Tina, now known as The Mad Eater.
Pack had been juicing pretty good on the tax free booze while maintaining a steady communication with Scorpio. The both of them knocking each other out with experiences and people. "From obscure corners of our reality," Pack confided to Garfunkel later on.
Or as Cole once put it,"Life is just a story to tell."
Next: The Long Rap
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
Another Moment of Terrifying Clarity: Just a thought. Our Supreme Court in it's wisdom, deemed corporations have the same rights as people. However corporations don't pay people taxes. They have corporate exemptions. So it seems logical to sue corporations for the return of said exemption money to the U.S.Treasury-not to mention the IRS. After all, it's for exactly the same reason--disallowing normal corporate exemptions claimed by our cannabis dispensaries--that the IRS is going after them. Meanwhile they are not above accepting tax money from what they claim is an illegal enterprise. Where is Zorro when we need him?
Author's note: The following is sort of a digression from my usual first person recollections. However since it was written on the spot, day-to-day, i felt it might be useful to know what it was really like to be part of this still-unequalled cultural movement--if only to understand motivations that might seem reckless in today's corporate society..
And while we are all here it seems like a good time to thank my friend, consigliere, and editor on this rambling oral journey--Robert Gilman...
Getting Into The Wind
( continuing my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier)
Saturday morning, the 18th of Febuary, Scorpio woke to the throb of the ship pulling out. He got up, took a peek out the porthole, and went back to sleep. As far as he was concerned the boat started sailing days ago. That afternoon Scorpio went to lunch alone. Mysterious Traveling Companion was out of commision due to flu and couldn't leave her cabin. A classic ploy.
Lunch was sparse, only Pack and Tina, a few of the old folks, and two of the collegians across the hall. Things picked up in the lounge after lunch. Scorpio ran into a face he knew. Blaine was a waiter at one of his favorite neighborhood hangouts. He was taking his BMW to Yugoslavia and making a run to India.
A young girl wandered in holding a recorder. She sat down and began blowing soft, mournful notes.
Pack drifted by from a conversation with a cat with an FBI haircut and a wild backwoods gleam in his eye. The man was fresh off an Alaskan oil rig and bound for some speculation in Morocco. Pack and Blaine talked motorcycles for a while. Then Blaine went out to check his bike's rigging while Pack and Scorpio shook their heads, knowing what the other was thinking. They start out for India with some spare parts and a map. Later you catch them in Istanbul wheeling a bent frame and holding a clutch cable in their trembling hand.
"Wait man," Pack snapped his fingers gleefully, "that's when it's just getting to be FUN." Although both agreed Blaine was cool they later discovered he had never broken down his bike. He'd watched someone do it and figured he'd learn as he went. Pack nodded sagely, aware necessity was a sharp spur but nonetheless offered to go over the machine with Blaine when the weather settled.
For at this point the sea was fitful--and quickly getting worse. The ship was rocking...and rolling--no stabilizers on a frieghter, so...it was time to read.
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test concerned itself with some of the matters Scorpio had been meditating on this trip. Are you off the bus--or On The Boat?
Outside the weather was building into a serious storm.
That night at dinner it was tough keeping food on the table. The steward battened down the portholes with a worried look on his usually impassive face. At Scorpio's table Tina and Pack were discovering there was no way to eat on a ship pitching like Warren Spahn (who used to lean wayyy back, his foot straight up in the air before he threw) so talk was muted.
It was useless to do anything but get into your bunk and cool it.
The waves got ever wilder with each hour however, and Scorpio was reduced to gritting his teeth as he watched the curtains lift almost parallel to the floor with each immense heave of the ship. For the next two days the Tuhobic continued to struggle through high, dangerous seas. Passengers were forbidden on the upper decks. Objects flew around the cabin at will. The steward wet down the tablecloth to keep the plates from sliding. Transferring food to mouth was a major logistic problem.
But finally, one morning the weather broke.
It was reasonable. Objects remained in a fixed position. Plates of food remained still long enough for one to spear a bite or two. Scorpio arrived at lunch refreshed by his first eight hour sleep in two days. Garfunkle was there, having made all the meals, as had Pack and Tina, now known as The Mad Eater.
Pack had been juicing pretty good on the tax free booze while maintaining a steady communication with Scorpio. The both of them knocking each other out with experiences and people. "From obscure corners of our reality," Pack confided to Garfunkel later on.
Or as Cole once put it,"Life is just a story to tell."
Next: The Long Rap
Friday, May 4, 2012
The Joker Gets Wild
Time Capsule:1970
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is it's ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
A Moment of Terrifying Clarity: What's up with the human race? While meditating over my morning J it occurred to me that the inhabitants of this planet are having a lethal hissy fit. Syrians slaughtering Syrians, then there's Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt (still), Yemen, Somalia, Rawanda, Libya, Iraq, just to name a few. But beyond war and revolution, there are moral violations that are beyond comprehension. That helpless children are forced to become killers, prostitutes, or laborers in designer factories. is revolting enough but the beat goes on: beheadings, mutilations, mass rape for starters. In Nigeria victims were killed by pouring boiling water over them. Third World horrors right? Oh no. Right here on campus, Florida A&M to be precise, one student died and others severely injured from being hazed by the school's marching band directors. This is faculty i'm talking about--educators, mentors... One young female was beaten so severly her thigh was broken These professors Anthony E. Simons III and Diron T. Holloway beat Robert Champion to death. For a fucking marching band? Human beings seem to have lost all sense of proportion--and humanity. No wonder UFO's refuse to land here.
The Joker Gets Wild
( the following is from my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier )
Cole was a tight friend from the early days and he was seeing some pals off. He knew that Scorpio was on the boat and, what do you know, his friends were right next door and introductions seemed in order.
Scorpio didn't mind. He knew that Cole ran with good people and it was all inevitable anyway. But he was thinking hard about the Joker Man as he followed Cole to the next cabin.
Now Cole was a swashbuckler, pure adventure, and over the last few years Scorpio had cooled that part of his life. But it was that cooling that led to Scorpio's original doubts. He was getting slow, in the same predicament as the athlete turned announcer.
Well there was no changing that. Scorpio was not about to come out of retirement. He was just happy to be in disorganized ball you see, and able to enjoy the game from another angle. But here were Cole's friends Pack and his old lady Tina, all smiles and good vibes, rolling some smoke and getting into a rap. Pack was a quick, compact cat with a thick Zapata moustache, looking like a muscular Biff Rose.* His lady was tall and lovely, with long black hair. And they had the first rumour of the trip.
Art Garfunkle was on the boat.
Everything was relaxed as we discussed the rumor and where-you-going sort of thing until Cole said his good nights and left for Manhattan. .
The next morning Scorpio went out on deck to see what was happening.
Nothing.
The hatches were wide open, still empty and there was plenty of deck space left to fill. It would be another two days at least. Lunch saw a table of Homespun Hecate, Pack, Tina, Mysterious Traveling Companion
and Scorpio. He and Pack began a casual game of friends in common that ran right through the entire afternoon, dinner, brandy in the lounge, and developed into an eyeball-to-eyeball rap that covered all the routes they had traversed over the past 10 seasons. Faces, places, and stories that stretched from Dino Valente to Hugh Masekela , wound around Momma Cass to Maury Hayden, into Rick Lloyd and Ben Carruthers, and across Europe to Balbek Lebanon.
Earlier in '69 Pack had become involved as a suspect in the Sharon Tate killings. He had been hanging out in LA, running with Voytek Frykowski, the Polish producer who was one of the victims. Because of a quirk of accent he always pronounced Pack's name as "Pick", a variation of the bloody "pig" scrawled on the door of the murder house. Pack had been questioned for fourteen hours by a team of detectives who knew everything about him: his favorite drugs, his buddies, family, and current scene.
"They even knew stuff that only me and one other cat knew... and he's dead." Pack pondered their efficiency.
The conversation went around, connecting like a pinball machine. Every name Pack or Scorpio mentioned hit a scene they both dug, Scorpio felt good. Intersubjective cosmic points racking up a sense of what he had been trying to define. New York seemed far away, even though the boat had yet to sail.
But he was still wary.
Joker Man was getting rather heavy in there giving Scorpio pause to wonder what next.
All these pauses, connections, great gossip and Pack's sense of what's funny, brought the time to Friday the 17th of February. Out on the deck the Tuhobic was looking really trim and together for the first time.
That evening at dinner the Joker wailed on.
Art Garfunkel was On the Boat.
Everyone was cool and looking somewhere else but there he was, confiding to a rather foxy brunette. The rest of his table was filled out by some collegiate types.
The way the dining room was now set up all the youngsters were at long tables at each end while the more senior citizens sat at smaller tables in the center--thus forming a tacit no-man's-land. Over dinner everyone talked about when the boat was LEAVING while Pack and Scorpio picked up their rap. Slow but steady.
"Think there's some pickers on board," Scorpio might venture.
"That allowed?" Pack would matter of fact.
And they would fall out.
Up above the dining table there is a sprinkler system. On it is a directive written in two languages: Non Dirate/Do Not Touch.
"Must be do not touch in Yugoslav," Pack considered.
To test his theory, Pack grabs the passing arm of The Extremely Nervous Waiter Who Speaks No English, points violently at Tina, and begins shouting "non dirate" at him.
Everyone-including the waiter-broke up laughing while no-man's-land looked grave. The evening passed like that, bouncing tales over drinks, smoke, and music, the rap marching on while Pack and Scorpio wondered where it was they hadn't met.
NEXT: Getting Into The Wind
*Note: Truly an obscure reference.
Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
"The most amazing property of cannabis is it's ability to fog the minds of those who don't use it."
A Moment of Terrifying Clarity: What's up with the human race? While meditating over my morning J it occurred to me that the inhabitants of this planet are having a lethal hissy fit. Syrians slaughtering Syrians, then there's Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt (still), Yemen, Somalia, Rawanda, Libya, Iraq, just to name a few. But beyond war and revolution, there are moral violations that are beyond comprehension. That helpless children are forced to become killers, prostitutes, or laborers in designer factories. is revolting enough but the beat goes on: beheadings, mutilations, mass rape for starters. In Nigeria victims were killed by pouring boiling water over them. Third World horrors right? Oh no. Right here on campus, Florida A&M to be precise, one student died and others severely injured from being hazed by the school's marching band directors. This is faculty i'm talking about--educators, mentors... One young female was beaten so severly her thigh was broken These professors Anthony E. Simons III and Diron T. Holloway beat Robert Champion to death. For a fucking marching band? Human beings seem to have lost all sense of proportion--and humanity. No wonder UFO's refuse to land here.
The Joker Gets Wild
( the following is from my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier )
Cole was a tight friend from the early days and he was seeing some pals off. He knew that Scorpio was on the boat and, what do you know, his friends were right next door and introductions seemed in order.
Scorpio didn't mind. He knew that Cole ran with good people and it was all inevitable anyway. But he was thinking hard about the Joker Man as he followed Cole to the next cabin.
Now Cole was a swashbuckler, pure adventure, and over the last few years Scorpio had cooled that part of his life. But it was that cooling that led to Scorpio's original doubts. He was getting slow, in the same predicament as the athlete turned announcer.
Well there was no changing that. Scorpio was not about to come out of retirement. He was just happy to be in disorganized ball you see, and able to enjoy the game from another angle. But here were Cole's friends Pack and his old lady Tina, all smiles and good vibes, rolling some smoke and getting into a rap. Pack was a quick, compact cat with a thick Zapata moustache, looking like a muscular Biff Rose.* His lady was tall and lovely, with long black hair. And they had the first rumour of the trip.
Art Garfunkle was on the boat.
Everything was relaxed as we discussed the rumor and where-you-going sort of thing until Cole said his good nights and left for Manhattan. .
The next morning Scorpio went out on deck to see what was happening.
Nothing.
The hatches were wide open, still empty and there was plenty of deck space left to fill. It would be another two days at least. Lunch saw a table of Homespun Hecate, Pack, Tina, Mysterious Traveling Companion
and Scorpio. He and Pack began a casual game of friends in common that ran right through the entire afternoon, dinner, brandy in the lounge, and developed into an eyeball-to-eyeball rap that covered all the routes they had traversed over the past 10 seasons. Faces, places, and stories that stretched from Dino Valente to Hugh Masekela , wound around Momma Cass to Maury Hayden, into Rick Lloyd and Ben Carruthers, and across Europe to Balbek Lebanon.
Earlier in '69 Pack had become involved as a suspect in the Sharon Tate killings. He had been hanging out in LA, running with Voytek Frykowski, the Polish producer who was one of the victims. Because of a quirk of accent he always pronounced Pack's name as "Pick", a variation of the bloody "pig" scrawled on the door of the murder house. Pack had been questioned for fourteen hours by a team of detectives who knew everything about him: his favorite drugs, his buddies, family, and current scene.
"They even knew stuff that only me and one other cat knew... and he's dead." Pack pondered their efficiency.
The conversation went around, connecting like a pinball machine. Every name Pack or Scorpio mentioned hit a scene they both dug, Scorpio felt good. Intersubjective cosmic points racking up a sense of what he had been trying to define. New York seemed far away, even though the boat had yet to sail.
But he was still wary.
Joker Man was getting rather heavy in there giving Scorpio pause to wonder what next.
All these pauses, connections, great gossip and Pack's sense of what's funny, brought the time to Friday the 17th of February. Out on the deck the Tuhobic was looking really trim and together for the first time.
That evening at dinner the Joker wailed on.
Art Garfunkel was On the Boat.
Everyone was cool and looking somewhere else but there he was, confiding to a rather foxy brunette. The rest of his table was filled out by some collegiate types.
The way the dining room was now set up all the youngsters were at long tables at each end while the more senior citizens sat at smaller tables in the center--thus forming a tacit no-man's-land. Over dinner everyone talked about when the boat was LEAVING while Pack and Scorpio picked up their rap. Slow but steady.
"Think there's some pickers on board," Scorpio might venture.
"That allowed?" Pack would matter of fact.
And they would fall out.
Up above the dining table there is a sprinkler system. On it is a directive written in two languages: Non Dirate/Do Not Touch.
"Must be do not touch in Yugoslav," Pack considered.
To test his theory, Pack grabs the passing arm of The Extremely Nervous Waiter Who Speaks No English, points violently at Tina, and begins shouting "non dirate" at him.
Everyone-including the waiter-broke up laughing while no-man's-land looked grave. The evening passed like that, bouncing tales over drinks, smoke, and music, the rap marching on while Pack and Scorpio wondered where it was they hadn't met.
NEXT: Getting Into The Wind
*Note: Truly an obscure reference.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Beating The Devil
Time Capsule: 1970
Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
Heads Up: Check out a strain with the unlikely name Girl Scout Cookies at Re-Leaf on Mission at 9th in San Francisco. It's a fast moving, long lasting, space shuttle that keeps climbing for the new frontier.
Scorpio Rising on the Queen Mary of the Underground: Part 2
(The following is from my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier, Morocco)
Beating The Devil
Now you must understand that the charm of Yugolinia, the Yugoslavian Passenger Line, is in its casual attitude about time. People who can afford to spend eight to ten days en route to Tangier or Casablanca, are people who move with the flow.
Indeed Scorpio had first heard about the line in the late fifties when it transported heroes like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Bowles and Burroughs to the Casbah, And the legend persisted. Tangier, Kif, hash, Telepathon, girls, boys, free zone, exotic solitude, enlightenment... Any experience you can imagine. Live like a lord on 1000 bucks a year.
All through the early sixties the legend grew. The Yugo line baby. New York to Morocco for 180 bucks. If you take your bike its another 50. Haul a car? 150 bills. Absolutely the cheapest and grooviest way to go. Incredible droves of drop-outs, drifters, artists, students, smugglers, seekers and unlikely prophets: making it from everywhere to catch the boat. And most of them ending up crashing on someone's sofa and watching New York devour their circus money, while the captain makes up his mind tp pull out. For as mentioned earlier, the ship seldom leaves when it's supposed to.
(Jerusalem '65 Herod's Gate)
As the scheduled departure date went from February 17 to 24 Scorpio began to get anxious. His phone was off, his apartment disassembled, and his psyche set at split position. With each change of date the delay became more sinister. Finally, on the 24th, Scorpio decided to stop fucking around and Get On The Boat.
He boarded the Tuhobic at the Columbia Street Pier in Brooklyn, after a grim ride through Red Hook at dusk. The first things that struck him were the scars that time, and the sea, had worked into the freighter. Needing a paint job, its hatches open and empty, loading beams tangled and cargo in disarray, the Tuhobic looked vulnerable, and very tired. Well, she was five years older and so was Scorpio. He found his cabin, hustled the steward for some food, took a long walk around the deck and went to sleep.
Scorpio took his time getting up and arranging himself in the cabin with his Mysterious Traveling Companion. He was On The Boat and there was no reason to hurry.
In the off season (November to March) the difference between First Class and Tourist Class is thirty bucks. Scorpio had traveled Tourist the first time, and found it quite confortable. Since he had Mysterious Traveling Companion along this trip it seemed like a good idea to spring for some extra amenities.
It was an excellent idea.
All of the cabins, both Tourist and First, were done in the same decor: sort of New England bed and breakfast. But the first class cabins were spacious: large stateroom, private bathroom, wardrobe area with big closets. The two single beds were separated by a mirrored vanity table and against the far wall was a couch with small bureaus at each end. There was also a table, two armchairs, wall to wall carpeting, and plenty of drawer space. All this was to the good in Scorpio's situation because because Mysterious Traveling Companion never made a move with less than ten suitcases and the odd trunk.
That taken care of, Scorpio put a roll of film his Konica and leisurely went up on deck Leisurely because On The Boat time is a key factor. Sixty strangers compressed on board for ten days with all their needs covered, booze fifty cents a taste, and grass legal beyond the twelve mile limit. Everything of course at the captain's discretion. Over that span things change and take shape. Basic elements for any number of plot lines.
On deck nothing was moving.
Scorpio took a few shots of the loading cranes talked to an elderly fellow passenger about the departure date and went back to his cabin to read. He picked up The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, switched on the reading lamp above his pillow and, after noting the subtle luxury of the ashtray screwed into the wall just hand high, remained transfixed until the dinner bell rang.
One's first entrance in any ship's dining room is always an uptight affair and Scorpio's dinner offered an added stroke. There were ten pissed off females sitting glumly around the table.
It came out that only two were sailing and the rest were there to see them off. They were dragged because they all expected to eat but the ship was only feeding certified passengers. To Scorpio this meant getting into his chow with sixteen hungry eyes on his greedy chops.
During the meal Scorpio learned which two were on the boat. They were eating. One was a homespun, maidenly type from Florida who was on her way to Morocco and Europe, destination and stay indefinite. The other, a very straight looking bird with an up and over swept hairdo that made her look like a Miss America contestant--was on her way to Algiers to pick up on revolutionary techniques. From Miss America to Miss Chicago Convention. She talked about Battle of Algiers and billyclubs and as he listened to her repeating slogans, an ecstatic glaze on her smiling face, Scorpio realized he was dealing with the old Joan of Arc change here and promptly intoned baptism.
After dinner he went directly back to his stateroom and his book only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. Reluctantly, Scorpio got up and opened it a crack.
Cole was standing there.
NEXT: The Joker Gets Wild
Can * nois * seur (kan' us sur') n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis
Heads Up: Check out a strain with the unlikely name Girl Scout Cookies at Re-Leaf on Mission at 9th in San Francisco. It's a fast moving, long lasting, space shuttle that keeps climbing for the new frontier.
Scorpio Rising on the Queen Mary of the Underground: Part 2
(The following is from my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier, Morocco)
Beating The Devil
Now you must understand that the charm of Yugolinia, the Yugoslavian Passenger Line, is in its casual attitude about time. People who can afford to spend eight to ten days en route to Tangier or Casablanca, are people who move with the flow.
Indeed Scorpio had first heard about the line in the late fifties when it transported heroes like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Bowles and Burroughs to the Casbah, And the legend persisted. Tangier, Kif, hash, Telepathon, girls, boys, free zone, exotic solitude, enlightenment... Any experience you can imagine. Live like a lord on 1000 bucks a year.
All through the early sixties the legend grew. The Yugo line baby. New York to Morocco for 180 bucks. If you take your bike its another 50. Haul a car? 150 bills. Absolutely the cheapest and grooviest way to go. Incredible droves of drop-outs, drifters, artists, students, smugglers, seekers and unlikely prophets: making it from everywhere to catch the boat. And most of them ending up crashing on someone's sofa and watching New York devour their circus money, while the captain makes up his mind tp pull out. For as mentioned earlier, the ship seldom leaves when it's supposed to.
As the scheduled departure date went from February 17 to 24 Scorpio began to get anxious. His phone was off, his apartment disassembled, and his psyche set at split position. With each change of date the delay became more sinister. Finally, on the 24th, Scorpio decided to stop fucking around and Get On The Boat.
He boarded the Tuhobic at the Columbia Street Pier in Brooklyn, after a grim ride through Red Hook at dusk. The first things that struck him were the scars that time, and the sea, had worked into the freighter. Needing a paint job, its hatches open and empty, loading beams tangled and cargo in disarray, the Tuhobic looked vulnerable, and very tired. Well, she was five years older and so was Scorpio. He found his cabin, hustled the steward for some food, took a long walk around the deck and went to sleep.
Scorpio took his time getting up and arranging himself in the cabin with his Mysterious Traveling Companion. He was On The Boat and there was no reason to hurry.
In the off season (November to March) the difference between First Class and Tourist Class is thirty bucks. Scorpio had traveled Tourist the first time, and found it quite confortable. Since he had Mysterious Traveling Companion along this trip it seemed like a good idea to spring for some extra amenities.
It was an excellent idea.
All of the cabins, both Tourist and First, were done in the same decor: sort of New England bed and breakfast. But the first class cabins were spacious: large stateroom, private bathroom, wardrobe area with big closets. The two single beds were separated by a mirrored vanity table and against the far wall was a couch with small bureaus at each end. There was also a table, two armchairs, wall to wall carpeting, and plenty of drawer space. All this was to the good in Scorpio's situation because because Mysterious Traveling Companion never made a move with less than ten suitcases and the odd trunk.
That taken care of, Scorpio put a roll of film his Konica and leisurely went up on deck Leisurely because On The Boat time is a key factor. Sixty strangers compressed on board for ten days with all their needs covered, booze fifty cents a taste, and grass legal beyond the twelve mile limit. Everything of course at the captain's discretion. Over that span things change and take shape. Basic elements for any number of plot lines.
On deck nothing was moving.
Scorpio took a few shots of the loading cranes talked to an elderly fellow passenger about the departure date and went back to his cabin to read. He picked up The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, switched on the reading lamp above his pillow and, after noting the subtle luxury of the ashtray screwed into the wall just hand high, remained transfixed until the dinner bell rang.
One's first entrance in any ship's dining room is always an uptight affair and Scorpio's dinner offered an added stroke. There were ten pissed off females sitting glumly around the table.
It came out that only two were sailing and the rest were there to see them off. They were dragged because they all expected to eat but the ship was only feeding certified passengers. To Scorpio this meant getting into his chow with sixteen hungry eyes on his greedy chops.
During the meal Scorpio learned which two were on the boat. They were eating. One was a homespun, maidenly type from Florida who was on her way to Morocco and Europe, destination and stay indefinite. The other, a very straight looking bird with an up and over swept hairdo that made her look like a Miss America contestant--was on her way to Algiers to pick up on revolutionary techniques. From Miss America to Miss Chicago Convention. She talked about Battle of Algiers and billyclubs and as he listened to her repeating slogans, an ecstatic glaze on her smiling face, Scorpio realized he was dealing with the old Joan of Arc change here and promptly intoned baptism.
After dinner he went directly back to his stateroom and his book only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. Reluctantly, Scorpio got up and opened it a crack.
Cole was standing there.
NEXT: The Joker Gets Wild
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