Post by HAL9000Subject: No Such Thing as Hippie Hygiene
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Date: 2003-12-08 13:40:46 PST
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Date: 2003-08-01 10:02:32 PST
Hippie Hygiene, July 19, 2003
Reviewer: medicalschmedical from Cotati
I remember visiting hippie enclaves in the late sixties. I was
generally disturbed by their disdain for healthy living, in spite of
their "natural life" proclamations. For instance, in Palo Colorado
Canyon and Garapata Canyon in Big Sur, California, I found many
abandoned VW bugs and VW campers along the creeks, and trash thrown
about amidst the redwood forest. Many of these people were living in
substandard cabins with dirt floors, in the dank and damp redwood
environs. Staph infections were a common sight on their usually
malnurished bodies. Since "garapata" is the Spanish word for "tick," I
suspect that many who survived into old age must have recurring
ailments associated with Lyme disease. Still, I consider these people
to be the truest of the "true hippies." Others, of course, were mere
pretenders, living off of the ubiquitous folklore of the counter
culture back in the late sixties. Some were to later write books about
them and eulogize their language and life styles. God forid any
unintended consequences fostered by McCleary's glorification of them
in his book. The byproduct of much of their stilted lives can be
better witnessed in a novel by Denis Johnson: "Already Dead, A
California Gothic."
Mendocino County has yet to recover from its hippie heritage. Much
mayhem and murder still abounds in the Emerald Triangle of Northern
California. Many of the Communes also failed and their denizens were
to later become charges of the late, great Welfare State. I suspect
Mr. McCleary was a hippie-pretender, cashing in on the dope and free
love of that era. When push came to shove in his old age, he had to
fill the vacuum of his life by rationalizing a life style and
perspective that pretty much left his being empty of content. If his
book is a "blast from the past," it must be a painful one for so many.]
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The Hippie Legacy in West Sonoma County:
OTHER SIDE RIVER: OWED TO A DEAD POET
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"Shelter me from the powder and the finger
Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger."
Neil Young..............(or was it Richard Brautigan?)
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I don't make it a point generally to keep up with the musings of
counter-culture hack-writers such as yourself, Pat Nolan. But as fate
would have it, I came across your mid-life-crisis-diatribe
(Monterey:Exile's Return) that you wrote almost twenty years ago. A
Little brief in your depiction of the Monterey Peninsula...were'nt
you?: Not to worry; I filled in the blanks between the lines myself.
I've walked the same streets, beaches, tracks, and sat within the
"lichened granite rocks" at Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. I also
lived above the former Wing Chong Market (of Steinbeck Novels Reknown)
that you inhabited not long before I did....amidst the poets,
novelists, junkies, and drunks---all of us there seemingly by way of
self-imposed exile...more turned-on that we were tuned-in, and, like
Dylan, creating our own Depression. "Good Ol' Roy" (known by you as
"King") was certainly a landlord of distinction, not unrivaled by the
Proprietor of the La Ida Cafe, Kalisa Moore. The stench of sardines
had already been replaced by the odors of incense and sandalwood oil.
Good Ol' Roy wallowed in self-absorption, not unlike yourself during
your sojourn to to the Monterey Peninsula...a middle-aged drunk who
always thought that America's very survival fully depended upon
General McCarthur's aborted mandate to bomb Manchuria. As regards
Kalisa....well, that's another story.
I also filled in the blanks for the Bull's Eye Tavern, The Bitter
Seeds Rock Band, and John Smithback--failed author of a dead novel:
The Lonely Dark. I was a bartender at that infamous watering hole, the
Bull's Eye Tavern during and after the Monterey Pop Festival of '67. I
remember you as a patron of said bar, mingling with the rock musicians
and the underground artists/literati. You usually came in with your
first wife, Fiona....Remember Fiona...of course you do! You won the
contest according to Ken Beach...i.e. the one between you, Ken, and
John Heshmati ( the Iranian -monger...recently dead from AIDS in
Bisbee, AZ [good riddance!!]..he couldn't stay away from the s in
Naco and Aqua Prieta, it seems). Yes, Pat...you won the "right of the
senior"...the first rights to ruin a fifteen year old
Woodstock-bohemian teeny-bopper. Congratulations....You the Man! And
just what is Fiona for you now? Just so much "fodder for the literary
machine." I would that you had rather ended up with Regina Fletcher,
her sister....that Gorgon-Hyena would have chewed you up and spit you
out in a New York Second! That would have been poetic justice, to say
the least.
You are one helluva self-absorbed, egotistic sonofabitch, Pat......and
a lousy poet to boot. I saw you as a sycophant always trying to claw
you way up the bohemian social ladder. You were rejected by Dan
Hulfers and his merry band of artsy-craftsy dope dealing acid-heads,
though, didn't you? Musta hurt! Finally reached a point, however,
where you could "name-drop" in many of your scripts. You mentioned
Diane Di Palma in your Bolinas sketch. You are not unlike her in that
regard...she once boasted (off the subject ) at a Poetry Slam that she
had f*cked Jack Kerouac the same day that she had met him. You're all
wannabe "star ers".......more fodder for the literary machine, I
suppose. For the most part, Monterey rejected you and a truck-load of
other hacks. Your ill-fated journey to New York by thumb...with Fiona
and your baby Brian sick with colic, in tow must have been a major
defeat in your early beginnings. So, what did you do? Got yourself
another hippie nymph, another kid, a welfare check, and a HUD house
near the Russian River. Monte Rio must have been the smaller pond to
your bigger frog. The Lower Russian River communities are perfect for
the likes of you. Kindly give my regards to all the burned-out
hippies, crop-growers, and the white-powder crowd of immigrants who,
like you, came here to cash-in on the Great American social service
abundance.
Your neck of the Redwoods was Richard Brautigan's undoing. Richard
Brautigan.....your mentor in poetic license! Let him be your mentor in
solutions to a life of pain as well. Buy yourself a .44 magnum...save
on ammunition....you'll only need one bullet! By the By, what ever
happened to the prototype for Brautigan's "Confederate General From
Big Sur?" And his friend, Kathy Testa, the one that could have
played the role of the beach gypsy in Felinni's "8 1/2?" This all
makes me recall Ray Pearson, Tom Burleson, and the night Dan Hulfers
and Tom kicked in the door to an 8th street house in Pacific Grove
where Ken Beach and Diane Buby were spending the night....proceeding
to date Junkie- Janice and her roomate. It wasn't long thereafter
that Ken lost his wife to Jack Hulfers who ruined her with too many
kids and a bad heroin habit....tsk, tsk. This revolution was never
televised! Just another forgotten soap opera of minor
proportions....write a poem about it!
What will you be to your children, Pat? Diane Di Prima's daughter
(after a self-imposed exile in a chickencoop in Mendocino) once
commented to a Rolling Stone Magazine interviewer that the real heroes
at her family house were the drug dealers...they, at least bought
Christmas presents for the kids...and who were the poets for her? They
were "those icky guys in the corner with foam at the edge of their
mouths!" Looked in the mirror lately, Pat? Alan Ginsberg was once
furious at his former friend, Norman Podheretz and taunted him: "We'll
get you through your children, Norman!" Norman had the last laugh in
that regard but Alan did get you, Pat. And Me? I'm the guy you warned
your children about...........not for any reason other than to slander
one you envied and despised. Thus you caused me some anguish when I
lived for the better part of a year along the Russian River. I'm more
resilent than you must have taken me to be. And all those older
faces...left over from their previous low-life existence in the
Monterey Peninsula (Michelle Alling comes to mind for one)...seeking
new salvation in the Redwoods....how pathetic they seemed. Same old
vindictive ploys....Sally Higgins surely must have been their mentor.
As you must know at this point, I am a firm believer in "quid pro
quo." This response is my attempt to give you a taste of your own
shit. Perhaps you've already changed by now....after all, you were "so
much older then...you're younger than that now." I understand,
Pat....I was a victim of Bob Dylan's music as well......no more, no
less than Richard Farina was a victim of Willy Hines' Motorcycle
mania----write a poem about that for the late Mimi Baez Farina....use
the Tanka format...collaborate with a better poet than yourself...Leza
Lowitz. Better still, get an enema from her sister, Dr. Robin
Lowitz-Hoffman-Edwards, et al at the Southwest Health Clinic in Santa
Rosa. Tell her I sent you...for a discount and free genital exam
included.
As for the women who loved you and who ( you think ) still do: What
your wife, Gail, confided to Bob Divale would blow your ass away ( you
might not need that .44 after all ). "Don't tell Pat what I told you,"
said Bob.......so I guess I won't. As for Fiona....did I mention
Fiona?? ask Michael Leibert, ask the Irish Guy with the big dick, ask
me....hell, ask the entire 7th Fleet....you remember those sailors in
S. F., docha, Pat? Fiona said you did. But, then again, I never
believed even half of what she said about you...or Sally Higgins for
that matter. If it helps, her father ruined her long before you did.
Marxism and molestation.....the ultimate mind and body f*ck! We pay a
handsome price for those "first rights" wrongfully obtained....perhaps
it's our dowry payment. Mona should have told her "to stay away from
the train lines" ( but she was so much older then...she's younger than
that now).
I once hoped that someone ( of your ilk ) would kick your ass down
River Road from Monte Rio all the way to the Coffee Bazaar on Old
Armstrong Woods Road in Guerneville....where you might spend your last
moments listening to the inane ( albeit boastful ) anecdotes of the
pin-head descendents of baby boom-era hippies. I've lightened up since
then and would much prefer to ship you ( 4th Class Postage ) in a
black box back to Montreal ( you're not as Irish as Fiona would have
had us believe, it seems ). Hey, why not make that decision for
yourself! When that French Canuk, Jack Kerouac, couldn't get it up
anymore and finally realized that his life had been a futile venture
in playing with his own ....what did he do???....He went back to
his working class roots....home to Mamma, who, it turns out, was right
after all about Alan Ginsberg, Neil Cassady, and the rest of the
"dead-beat" generation. Perhaps the most noteworthy writing that Alan
Ginsberg should be remembered for occured when he signed the necessary
documents required by the State of New York to perform a Lobotomy on
his mother. The best poem that YOU ever wrote was "Fiona." I wrote one
for Mona and Regina....but the Federal Government forbids me to post
it on the internet or read it out loud in public....except in Santa
Cruz....the feds have given up on Santa Cruz! Betcha I could read it
at Tillie Gort's Cafe or maybe even on KFOG radio in San
Francisco....Rosalie Howarth would love to wallow in
"schadenfreude"......just like you and yours do.
This hand, having writ, shall now move on. I close with a quote
(source=Sally Higgins, the reincarnation of Pacific Grove's Elmarie
Dyke) from Leonard's wife, Linda, to Sally just before she slammed the
phone: "GET A JOB!"
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-------Copyright 9/11/2001....19:47:36.........HAL
9000\...............
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