Cerebral Flatulence

On this New Year’s Eve, it’s appropriate to remember the band most famously associated with the the Holiday — no, not Guy Lombardo and his Orchestra, that’s Dad’s era — I mean the Grateful Dead.
What began as a house band for Esalen fests and acid tests evolved into one of the great American phenomena. We hear how many scientists and engineers reached for the Moon with the inspiration of science fiction stories; less often you hear about how the Deadheads created the Internet that we enjoy today.

Think about it. The very first link in what became the Internet went live between UCLA and UC Berkeley in 1969. The Homebrew Computer Club, that petrie dish of the personal computer, met regularly on the Stanford campus in the mid 70’s to show off results from the garages around town. And it was there that the battle was joined over the Future: the Deadheads who shared software code for free, just as they recorded and swapped Dead show tapes for free, against an embryonic Microsoft whose CEO, a young Bill Gates, sent the Homebrew Computer Club an angry letter denouncing software sharing as theft. Gates and Paul Allen got rich, but despite a big ugly museum and a big, ugly corporation, they still don’t understand music or community.

What if the Internet had been invented in Seattle? Or Dallas? Or London or Beijing? I’m pretty sure it would’nt look anything like it does today. Despite every effort to turn a scientific paper publishing system into uber-TV, its communal, open-minded roots have (so far) kept it from becoming a censored, faux-filled, pay-for-play morass.

But long after Jerry Garcia’s passing and the band’s official demise, nuggets of wonder turn up from their glorious history. Here’s a quiet, special example.

“When I joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1973, I signed the loyalty oath that, 20 years earlier, the SAG Board of Directors had made a requirement for membership. I never stopped to consider what it was I was signing. It was one in a series of papers I needed to fill out, and I was so eager to join the Guild, I probably would have signed anything they put in front of me. And I did. That’s one of the most frightening legacies of the Blacklist Era: the institutionalization of fear and prejudice.

You see, the Guild Board had not yet removed the loyalty oath from our bylaws. In fact, no action was taken until some new members refused to sign it. Those new members were the rock group The Grateful Dead, and the year was 1967.

Only after The Grateful Dead refused to sign did the Board of Directors reconsider the necessity of a loyalty oath as a precondition for joining a union of artists.”

– SAG President Richard Masur at the Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist event

Um, my holiday plans went awry, so I’m back home in Big Sur and settling in.

(You bet — there’s a HELL of a tale behind that simple statement.
When my brain returns from the dry-cleaners I’ll fill you in. Sort of.)

Aaron Copland’s music is the sound of Lincoln’s “angels of our better [American] natures”, the soundtrack of Mark Twain and Will Rogers, John Steinbeck and WPA murals, Grand Coulee Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.

An Ansel Adams photograph, a Pixar cartoon, a Red Barber play-by-play, a Bernstein musical or pehaps one by Rodgers and Hammerstein or Gene Kelly, who asked his friend Ray Bradbury to adapt his stories into a spooky show, and who later got to adapt Herman Melville for John Huston and Gregory Peck.

On the brink of this new era in America, we should rediscover with wonder and delight the grand, funny, cruel, caring, big-shoulders and two-fisted American culture of our ancestors, who taught us how to weather tough times and build anew.

From Ross Nichols’ The Book of Druidry (1990) –

The Universal Druid’s Prayer

Grant Oh Goddess Thy Protection
And in Protection, Strength
And in Strength, Understanding
And in Understanding, Knowledge
And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice
And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it
And in the Love of it, the Love of All Existences
And in the Love of All Existences, the Love of the God and Goddess
God, Goddess and All Goodness
So Mote It Be.

Whe-he-hell, if it isn’t the Phantom Blatherer.

I’m off, like a prom dress, on another holiday cruise with Mom. This time it’s Valparaiso to Buenos Aires, with stops in Chilean fjords, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia and other rugged places. Just the thing for a bracing hike after stuffing oneself with shipboard viands. Mom is mad for tango, so Clubfoot here may be hustled onto a dance floor. No pictures, please.

2008 was a very full year; the American Presidential election (bueno!), the Big Sur fires (muy malo), several deaths in our small community (tan triste), and, for me personally, a burst of creative productivity (ole!). A lot of cool new people came into my life, and for all the good things, as well as the mighty lessons, I am profoundly grateful.

Winter Solstice

On this Pausing Day,
When so many nod to their ancestors’ wisdom
And feel again the sacred thrum
Of celestial spirituality and a longing for the Light,
May that Light, upon its return,
Return us all to itself.

*KCHZZZK*…This is [blacked out] reporting from an undisclosed location. I am well and in charge [blacked out] I have been working on film projects [blacked out] and the Groovium website. Look for more nonsense, bile, stone-strange stuff and whooey soon.

“Where are the pictures?” you may ask. Well, truly, they’re not yet visible for the same reasons the rest of my website ebbs and flows in its manifestation. (All the “Lorem ipsum” copy you’d eh-ver wanna read.) Those reasons include work, play, fire, accidents, travel, evacuation, general hyperactivity and dementia.

There will be all manner of eye candy forthcoming. Really. Honest.

Cross-posted from DANGER ROOM (I do hold forth there somewhat , commenting on Somali piracy:

At the risk of being crude, what’s the squeamishness about addressing this matter? The big powers have no compunction about using force majeure and accepting civilian casualties, and who the heck backs Somalia? If century-old firms can be executed in the blink of an eye, and heavy collateral damage is a daily cost of policy, why stop at half measures?

Turn that country into a free-fire zone and weapons test range. Kill every living thing that moves. Load B-52’s with napalm and incinerate Mogadishu from Diego Garcia. The country can’t feed itself, sprays s**t and has no natural resources. A salutary dose of Schrecklichkeit (so much more satisfying a term than ’shock and awe’). Effing get it over with.

OR…decide that’s not who we want to become and get serious about real international development. Either kill the poor or lift them up, but don’t drift.

If my tone is not sufficiently obvious, I am no more advocating genocide in Somalia than Jonathan Swift advocated Irish cannibalism. I am simply sick and tired of public bombast and private calculation. Such is the way of the world, but that’s one reason why I write this blog — so I can say how much I don’t have to like it. As always, if you find my words nettlesome or offensive, please exercise your power of free will and jump to another website…

Paul Newman, 1925-2008.

Better men and women than I are writing encomia and obituaries for him now, who passed away over the weekend. Real movie stars have been rare throughout the medium’s history; few performers possess the magic mix of bankability, looks, talent, skill, focus, chutzpah and willingness to stay public. Newman chose roles with texture and sharp edges and created a vision of humane, adult American masculinity. He was most definitely a Have who paid a lot of attention to Have Nots; born to some means, he graduated from Yale without the need for a skull or bone, and his charitable works share the man’s effective celebrity. Everyone knows (and eats) Newman’s Own products and may know about the Hole-In-The-Wall Gang camps, but perhaps you don’t know about the Westport Country Playhouse, where generations of American actors walked the boards and honed their skills. Or his support for the 1st Amendment. Or gay rights.

Paul Newman was a great actor, though he personally didn’t rank acting highest amongst his accomplishments. However, the man informed every role with his character, and his corpus models a a strong, trustworthy, compassionate male authority figure. You know, the Dad we all want to have and who some of us were lucky enough to grow up with.

…

[Compare Paul Newman to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. When these men and their retinue took over the American government it was snidely said, “Now the grown-ups are in charge.” My. Some grown-ups. There are terms for adults who bully, lie, kill, steal and avoid accountability. We call them sociopaths and criminals. Not grown-ups.]

Bwah-hah-ah-hah!!!!

Our lamentable society in miniature. It’s not academic — the stakes are too high — but this obnoxious brawl we’ve had in the national living room over the Thanksgiving turkey for the last 30 years will either stop, or our long slide into the Old Empires Retirement Home will become permanent.