For What It's Worth

REFLECTIONS OF JOHN SINCLAIR’S “GUITAR ARMY”

Are we a people? In 1969, somewhere in mid-January, John Sinclair answered this question for his far-left Rainbow Party, which he headed with his wife Leni. His answer was the affirmative: Yes, they are a people. This question, and its respective answer makes me wonder. What is a people? What is a political party? What is a race? Drawing from my knowledge of the philosophy of yet another late-60s counter-culture political party, the Yippies (Youth International Party), I have determined that the answer to all three of these question is the same. A people, a race, and a political party are whatever you want them to be.

As far as I’m concerned, you can gather together a group of thirty individuals who wear green spandex, play the tuba, and listen to ABBA, and if they consider themselves to be a people, so be it. If they even want to run one of their spandex-clad, tuba-bearing bretheren for president, they may do so freely. Chances are, even if all thirty of them and their respective spouses vote for this rather unconventional candidate, they will not be elected, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be given a chance.

Of course, this is only valid when this group of clearly highly individualistic persons want to be referred to as a people. If they don’t want to be, they don’t have to be. It all lies within their treatment of their image to the outside world, and their attitude towards each other. If this group is considered to be one of “united nonconformists” who want nothing to do with each other, and in fact would prefer if the others were to disappear off the face of the earth, then they obviously don’t want to see themselves as any kind of people. Now if this group were to rally together, marching down the streets of whatever city they happen to be in proudly wearing their green spandex, and holding their gleaming tubas high, they appear to want unity. It is these people who are indeed a people. Now when a group is a combination of the two extremes, in fact an outright, literal mixture, what are they? That brings me back to the Rainbow Party.

It is basically inevitable that when you gather together a room full of leftist radicals, just as with any political extremists, they will disagree. They are united by a cause, but in their treatment of the cause, and the possible solutions they suggest for it, they will most certainly be quite different. In an example like the Rainbow Party, which was a group of hippies, Yippies, Weathermen, communists, rock musicians, and disoriented teenage runaways, it seems impossible that they would agree on nearly anything. In fact, they truly didn’t, for the most part. They were united by their music, for as Sinclair himself refers to them as the Guitar Army. They were united by their hatred of the Vietnam War, and by their ingestion of certain hallucinogenic, and other usually brain-numbing substances that they all seemed to partake in on a semi-regular basis.

Were the Rainbow Party a people? Well, did they say they were a people? Yes, they most certainly did, in no indefinite terms. In fact, one of the mottoes of their party was “WE ARE A PEOPLE!” That would imply to me that they most certainly are, indeed.

These chapters continue the bible’s seemingly constant theme of the flawed hero figure with Jacob, who is perhaps the worst offender yet. In the course of these five chapters, Jacob tricks his father, manipulates his brother, and cheats his brother-in-law. This is exceedingly interesting from the perspective of the writer or writers of the bible. They present a prophet, a patriarch, no less, to be a highly dishonest, cunning, scheming, almost Machavellian character. As odd as this is inandofitself, the oddest thing seems to be that Jacob suffers no ill consequences for his actions.

The hebrew bible is a piece of literature ridden with wrong-doing, guilt, and often, punishment. I find it exceedingly odd that although these themes appear throughout throughout the book, Jacob appears to be immune to God’s wrath, for whatever reason. Even while a great multitude of people in the bible often displease God, and are punished accordingly, Jacob suffers no consequences from his cheating and lying. The truth is, I honestly do not know just why that is, but it does seem strange to me that he would be treated so differently than any other characters in the bible are. I find Jacob’s immunity to be very interesting, and I’d be very curious to find out exactly what its intention is. It doesn’t seem like a good way to inspire trust in a leader to see him favor some people over others, so I can’t imagine its true purpose in the bible.

This captivating, semi-autobiographical narrative explores many a contradiction; Inner peace and mental breakdown, alcoholism and sobriety, nature and urbanism, joy and sorrow. Kerouac manages to utilize these different emotions and indeed, their opposites to beautifully mold create a story that twists and turns like the narrow mountain roads where much of it takes place.

Jack is a damaged man, damaged by fame that came overnight. He truly wasn’t ready for it, and when it came, it scared him. Deep in a pit of depression and alcoholism, Jack decides to escape, and find the part of his self that he lost when he became famous. The place he chooses is a cabin in remote Raton Canyon owned by his friend Monsato (a character based on Lawrence Ferlinghetti). This story is almost completely true, with the author as the main character. When Kerouac wrote the book, he just changed the names of people involved, including his own. The character Kerouac based on himself is called Jack Duluoz.

The discoveries that Jack makes about himself while in the cabin are astounding, as this book partially chronicles the borderline nervous breakdown that he has while living there. It also chronicles loneliness in an incredible way. The reader sees Jack go from total joy in his solitude to deep loathing of his lonely life in Big Sur. Eventually, he begins to hallucinate, as shown in the poem “Sea”, which came from the words that Kerouac felt the sea was saying to him. This poem, perhaps even better than anything else in the book, gives the reader insight to the disturbing  changes that have come over both the author, and the main character.

In Kerouac’s first book, On the Road, the character he based on himself is free-spirited, content, and unnattached to earthly matters that don’t involve drinking, jazz, women, or philosophy. By this book, four years later, the reader can see how bitter the author has become. To think that this all came from one real man, and his real thoughts is mindblowing. Then again, it is just one more of the many opposites that come in Big Sur.

The beginning of the Hebrew Bible can be argued among the most important passages in history, truly the beginning of most major literature. Among the most interesting things about the passage is that it is blatantly lacking stylistically speaking (probably due to the translation from Hebrew), but is strangely captivating through its use of odd language, and simple sentences.

One thing I noted about this passage though was what seems to me to be a metaphor. The Tree of Knowledge often alluded to in the story of Adam and Eve appears to represent morality, and knowledge of morality. Adam and Eve only discover their nakedness, and only become ashamed of it, after they have already eaten the fruit of the tree.

The fact that God doesn’t want them to know about these types of issues gives God much more character. It makes him almost covetous of his creations, and rather jealous of them. He doesn’t seem to want them to have any independence whatsoever, only for them to abide by his will.
This is definitely an interesting choice, if not an odd method of characterization for a main character intended to be seen as a protagonist. It shows a very strong, mighty, imperious character being petty and jealous, which is rather uncommon in a piece of literature such as this.

I appreciate the choice that the author, or perhaps authors of this work made in characterizing God this way. After all, humans are jealous by nature, and as God said, they were created in his image.

Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass  has many themes, one of which is the power of word-of-mouth and propaganda.  In chapter eight, during the meeting between the Gyptian clans, one woman says, “We all heard rumors and stories of fearful things. We hear about children with no heads, or about children cut in half… about things too awful to imagine. I’m truly sorry to distress anyone, but we all heard this kind of thing, and I wasn’t to get it out into the open.” (Pullman, 137). This passage perfectly exhibits what happens to a usually rational population when it panics.

This is an especially interesting example of this phenomena, as the Gyptians usually keep to themselves as a whole. Though they are tough, diplomacy is everything to them. This quotation shows what happens when this belief goes too far. The Gyptians truly do not have any facts at this point about what is happening to their missing children, but even so, they continue to extrapolate what could be happening to them. This intense fear and panic makes the population restless, and as we see later in this scene, it divides it.

The classic example of propaganda (or just rumors) shaking up a country is the essentially manufactured Spanish-American war in 1898. William Randolph Hearst’s need for sensational news stories led to public pressure on the US government to declare war on Spain, stemming from events like the sinking of The USS Maine where even the government truly didn’t know what was going on. 3,289 Americans died in that war, one which never should’ve happened.

The age of information is a dangerous place to be. Although there are many advantages to having all kinds of knowledge at one’s fingertips, it is hard to ignore the obvious problems. One of these problems is the fact that someone can say anything they want and make it news. It doesn’t matter how true it is, and it doesn’t make a difference who the statement will hurt.

This scene in The Golden Compass shows some very complex human emotions, ranging from simple tribal instincts to things like anger, fear, panic, and fierce aspects of community. It is miraculous that Pullman was able to cram it all into less than one-hundred words.

PROPOSITION: A panicked populous, no matter how intelligent, is a populous at risk.

LINKS: An article about the Spanish-American War
                An overview of Yellow Journalism

NOTE, or more appropriately, CAUTION: This is a very, very odd post, as I am trying my best to do a completely different style of writing than I usually do, just because I want to see if I can do it, and see how it will turn out. To make a long story short, do not be afraid, as Lily will return shortly from this strange, beat-poetry-inspired weirdness. Thank you for listening.

I took off from my apartment on the lower east side at about four in the morning since I had nothing better to do than pack up a suitcase and go to No Man’s Land, New York for  few days to sit on some grass with about fifty people and listen to good music. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose, or anywhere else to go. I just figured that if the music was that bad, I’d just hang around in a field until everything was over, and then I’d come back home like nothing ever happened. It could be as good as Monterey back in ’67, but that seemed unlikely.

I took barebones, really. Just a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, a box of crackers, and a notebook with some pens in case there was anyone worth getting an autograph from. Just in case I got really bored, I took a copy of On The Road with me. Always a good thing to have around.

I’d heard that my friend Chris was going with some people he knew, and he had offered me a ride, so I didn’t have anything to worry about in terms of getting there. I grabbed a French roll I had in a drawer in my kitchen as I walked out the door, and I was gone.

When I got to his place, Chris introduced me to his friends. He was going to bring along a guy named Jay who he knew from Elementary school, and the other one was a girl he picked up god-knows-where a few months ago. He was nice enough, I guess, but she was a real case. She said her name was Laura, but everyone just called her Winter. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, but she would never lay off on the grass, and had that distant, brain-rot look in her eye that you see in a lot of the really young kids. It was sad, really.

Jay was another story altogether. He looked kind of like what’s-his-name-Eric-someone from The Animals, but he had long hair and a beard, and seemed a lot mellower. To be honest, he looked like one of those scarecrows that are tall and imposing enough to scare the living daylights out of you, but they couldn’t hurt a fly, even if they wanted to.

Chris was one of those big, tough, Irish-looking guys you never expect to see in love beads, and I never thought he’d have such weird friends, but freaks like us need to stick together if we want to survive, and we all wanted to survive so bad that we’d give anyone a try.

We piled into Chris’ beat-up VW, and left the city around dawn. We drove for hours until we hit the worst traffic any of us had ever seen. Winter said she thought that one of the cars was a bomb, but Chris and I decided to take our chances, and keep on waiting. The cars were all at a dead stop, and finally, we all decided that it would be smarter to just walk. It was only five or six miles away, and none of us were totally gone.

As we walked, we realized that we had been joined by hundreds of people, all of us apparently going to the same place. We all introduced ourselves, and sang songs as we walked those cold, tedious miles. I gave Winter my leather jacket since I didn’t need it and she did, and we just kept on walking until we finally came to the field, which was owned by a dairy farmer named Max Yasgur, or so I was told. Whoever it belonged to, it wouldn’t be much use to them now. The grass was trampled down until it was practically gone, and it didn’t seem like it would get any better. That poor farmer. There must have been a hundred thousand people there already, and the festival wasn’t starting for another few hours.

They were crowded into each other, the biggest mess of color I’d ever seen, and as an artist, you see a lot. They huddled together, talking to their neighbors like they’d known them all their lives, and there were enough messed-up looking people there to fill an infirmary. It may have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

For three days, we’d all be together, united in music and peace as one big, muddy, tie-dyed, mis-matched, tripping family in a little town called Bethel, New York at a not-so-little festival that people now call Woodstock.

In mid 1970, Texas-born blues singer Janis Joplin reached her greatest fame yet. Unfortunately, it was a few months too late. This fantastic talent had already died of a heroin overdose at twenty-seven years old. Thus, her final album Pearl, released posthumously, holds a very special meaning to Joplin’s family and fans alike. Many associate one particular song, “Mercedes Benz” very strongly with her death, and the months following it. This song, which was written by Joplin herself, has a huge amount of warmth and humor, as well as a biting truth (although very tongue-in-cheek) about what we, as a society has come to. The first line expresses it better than any other, “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz/My friends all drive porches, I must make amends/Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends/So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz”.

Frankly, the deepest truth in this song is that the line between consumerism and spirituality is growing eerily thin as enlightenment-for-a-price cults and high-end churches become marketable. It is highly unfortunate, in fact rather disturbing, that these two polar-opposites of modern life, really the physical and the metaphysical are blending together, turning black and white into a murky money-green.  

The truth is, consumerism and uses religion to its indirect advantage, while religion simply uses consumerism to stay alive. Consumerism uses religion to become more accessible to the average person, any person, for that matter. It goes back to the very 1950s idea that industrial consumerism truly does have something for everyone. It really would make sense for large companies to try to attract an eclectic consumer base by using religion. Maybe a family who won’t buy an edgier novel by someone like Jack Kerouac will buy an illustrated bible. It doesn’t make any difference to the company. After all, they are still making money, so what does it matter what they are selling?

The collisions of the two extremes of religion and consumerism may not have been what Janis Joplin had in mind when she wrote “Mercedes Benz”, but she certainly does express this melding of the physical and metaphysical quite humorously, not to mention very eloquently. Even so, the lighthearted wit of “Mercedes Benz” is sharply contrasted with the tragic untimely death of its writer and singer. It is true, though, that there is perhaps no more flattering, nor a more appropriate way of remembering Janis Joplin then though this brilliant song.

PROPOSITION: Consumerism and religion in modern life are becoming dangerously intertwined; a representation of the idea of the physical and metaphysical in our daily lives colliding.

LINKS:

A video of “Mercedes Benz”
Some information about Janis Joplin’s fascinating, and very lonely life.

There wasn’t a trace of timidity on her face when she walked into the Algonquin Hotel. She was positive that they would accept her, like they were supposed to accept all people. Maybe she was a bit young, and maybe she was a bit naïve, but she felt it was altogether plausible that they would hear her out, and maybe even agree with a thing or two she had to say. On the other hand, these people were legends. She was none too sanguine to believe that they had time for haughty, over-opinionated fourteen-year-olds. They were just too busy spouting random bits of humor and wisdom, unless of course they occasionally did something else at that big round table she’d heard so much about.

She pushed back a streak of dark hair from her face, meticulously placing it behind her ear. She began to think about what she would say to them. How would she approach them? “Hello, my name is Nora. I’m a great admirer of yours, and I…” No, Nora thought despondently. That’s a bad start They’ll tear you down in an instant. It could be something much more casual, perhaps along the lines of “Hi, I’m Nora. I wanted you all to know that I really admire your writing.” No, that wouldn’t work either. It seemed like a breach of some unwritten code to talk to those geniuses casually. Soon, Nora realized that there was no possible way to even try to plan something like this out. She’d just have to jump into the pit of sharks, and do her best to swim.

As she was about to turn the corner that would take her to the round table, she stopped, just observing what went on. First she saw the lithe form of George S. Kaufman saying something that must have been golden that she just couldn’t quite make out. She immediately recognized Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and Robert Benchley, as well as a few others she didn’t know offhand. She felt herself pale at the sight of all of those people that she so admired, all sitting around a table, talking as if it was no big deal. Nora found herself laughing quietly despite when she realized that to them, it was no big deal for them. Nothing special whatsoever.

“Who’s there?” It was Benchley, sounded just like he did in the pictures. Maybe her laughter wasn’t so quiet after all. This was the moment Nora had been waiting for, to walk out and say hello to some of the world’s smartest people. It was her chance to put herself on the map as the writer she was. Nora stayed silent. “Hello?” It was Dorothy Parker this time.

Nora turned around, walking back down the hall, away from the table. She had remained pretty much undetected, and that really was the better thing in the long run.

Why hadn’t she done it; spoken her mind? The question plagued her as she walked out the door, back down the windy street towards her home on 23rd street. She didn’t know why she’d turned around, and she didn’t know why she’d run away (because that is really what she felt ut was) but there was no going back now. She had blown a perfect chance.

Well, maybe next Sunday.

                Her room isn’t really painted, just the bare beams that it was built with. After all, it is an attic room, and usually attics aren’t altogether that polished-looking. Thrift store tapestries that emanated with the smell of incense (or maybe it was cannabis) were scattered between old concert posters from the Fillmore, covering the blaring beams that made her room feel like a garage. Light shone brightly through the window onto a Doors poster from about a year earlier, which led her to believe it was about three o’clock. It was probably close to that, as she had painstakingly arranged them to work as something of a sundial.

                Her bed, covered by a green and brown quilt appeared unslept in, as it usually was, although the worn chair by her desk seemed well-used; the typewriter immaculate, but obviously broken in. A glass of water from the night before still sat by a messy stack of papers, an unopened copy of Rolling Stone Magazine lay on top, the wrapper still on it. Her bookshelf was completely full.

               One shelf was designated for the beat poets, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Cassady, Corso, and many others whose names people always forgot. Another was for the philosophers and political commentary (a category which over the last few years has grown extensively with the addition of the likes of George Orwell’s Animal Farm) A fair amount of Fydor Dostoyevsky, Søren Kierkegaard and Franz Kafta, for she was a passionate existentialist. Of course, her worn copy of Abbie Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of It has a cherished place on her shelf. Somewhat out of place on the shelf dedicated to science fiction was a nicely bound volume of collected Dorothy Parker.  

              An old trunk contains her clothes, which are mainly in either very bright colors or earth tones, with many pairs of Levi’s to boot. An acoustic Gibson guitar rests against it, painted in bold, bright designs and patterns that were obviously hand done. An orange crate rests in the corner, bursting with a messy combination of 45s and LPs that left every record virtually impossible to find. They did seem to be in some kind of order although it is hard to tell just what it is. Jefferson Airplane on one side, The Grateful Dead on the other, The Beatles with a section of their own, as did the Doors. The Quicksilver Messenger Service was sandwiched between a mess of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and assorted old blues records. Currently on the turntable beside the crate was The Who’s Tommy, which she had been very much enjoying since its release.

                The door to her room is always open. Music is always playing.

             In a book laden with allegories, it was refreshing for me to see one relating to a cause about which I truly feel passionate, and love to discuss. This allegory is far more blatant than many of Rushdie’s, which really was rather nice for the reader who has been completely exhausted with heavily cloaked, complex allegories found earlier in the book. Obviously though, freedom is speech is not a subject that one readily cloaks. On page 119, Butt the Hoopoe says, “…What is the point of giving persons freedom of speech… if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the power of speech the greatest power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?” (Rushdie, 119)

            This statement is so very true in my opinion. I find it an outrage that people in our present day America don’t exercise this valuable right that so many around the world do not have at their disposal. I find it somewhat ludicrous that people will go on and on about how something needs to change, and then just sit back and wait for it to happen. I hope those people know that that isn’t the way to get things done. When one deals with the massive, complex machine that is our country, they should be prepared to give it all they’ve got. My feeling on this is that people don’t do it simply because they’re scared. The human race’s love of the status quo has hindered change many a time in history. We are afraid to go places where no one has been. Unfortunately, that is the only way to advance.

            Perhaps no one can put this deeply rooted phenomenon better than the inimitable David Crosby in his 1970 song “Long Time Gone”. One verse begins: “Speak out/ you’ve got to speak out against the madness/ You’ve got to speak your mind/ if you dare.” In these few, simple lines, Crosby manages to sum up a very difficult, very complicated thing. It is the human desire to conform.

            We simply don’t want to be different, even if we believe we can be. It goes back to a primitive, tribal world where conforming was surviving, and the people who were “odd” could be left for dead, alone to fend for themselves in a hostile, brutal world.

Maybe our world is still hostile, maybe even still brutal (in fact, undoubtedly so), but those of us who want change must remember that there will always be someone out there who can see their way.

If only they would speak out, they might find them.