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
Monday, May 28, 2012
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.
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