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.