Third Chorus: The Great Jiminy Cricket Ballroom Rant
Continued from last post...
We're still at the heavenly Avalon Ballroom where Janis Joplin was wailing on Psalm 4. Then Janis' conscience suddenly jumped out in the form of Jiminy Cricket and started berating the hippies and flower children because they're little brats. Now the Pondering Pig feels called upon to deliver some edifying comments...
The trouble with Jiminy Cricket is that, although he often gives good advice, he delivers it in a tut-tut, looking down his nose sort of manner that turns people like
Walrus Pemmican off. Walrus is the young guy with the beatific smile and guru shirt who got reamed by Jiminy Cricket in the last post for harboring angry thoughts, and I knew him well. When he went dancing at the Avalon Ballroom with his old lady, as they called girl friends in those far off times, they didn't want to be acceptable to God, they wanted to be free. Walrus wasn't against being acceptable to God, he just didn't know anything about it, and neither did the other kids sitting cross-legged on the ballroom floor. Jiminy Cricket is speaking the truth about the lies and pretensions in their lives, but he's not exactly helping them change their hearts. Check out his next line:
Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord!
Walrus is thinking, “Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord? Well, what happens if I accidentally offer a wrong sacrifice? Will God reject me like he did Cain in the Bible story?” All his rebellious instincts start coming out. But he's just looking for holes – to him, Cain and Abel is a story in a book, and The Lord's full name is The Lord of The Sleepers. Why would he put his trust in that God?”
Sorry if I am shocking anybody, but this guy David who wrote Psalm 4 is not communicating to the kids in the Avalon Ballroom, or any other ballroom in time. He is suggesting Walrus Pemmican obey the rules. Can you imagine? Why? Because I said so!
Any right-thinking rebel needs to understand the purpose of a rule. On the streets Walrus walks everyday he see cars with bumper stickers that read Question Authority and Ignore Alien Orders. In a world where the proper authorities have shown again and again you can't trust them, it's the only sane attitude.
The rules expressed in the Psalms themselves can be life-giving, survival tactics. It's not the rules' problem, the problem is the stuffy enemies of the young who turn them into umbrellas made for whacking.
Like this 'right sacrifice' business. Look, David was saying you'll be all right if you get the best unblemished lamb from your flock and take it down to the temple and offer that to God. That's how they did things in those days. It's got to be your best one, though. One little horrible skin disease and it's right out.
I like David a lot better in Psalm 51, when he says: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” It's the same idea, really, but applicable across the centuies.
For Walrus Pemmican,for instance, freedom brought with it a certain burden of guilt and sorrow. He was trying to live right, he really was, but he kept screwing up. Both he and his girl Suzie Creamcheese were chased by demons they couldn't see. Did they ever chase you?
They were young and beautiful, but there was some skin disease growing on their insides. If Walrus had known the Lord of the Sleepers could actually give him a clean, whole heart and a new, right spirit, and zero demons, he would have jumped...if he could actually feel on the inside like he looked on the outside, he would have offered that new heart to God in a second.
It's like that stiff word repentance. Once I understood it didn't mean some mysterious ritual where you put on a Christian suit, cut your hair short on the back and sides and chat with boring people while eating too many doughnuts, once I understood repentance actually meant accepting God's offer of a new and right spirit, then I was up for it.
Well, that's how the Walrus and his old lady are feeling about Jiminy Cricket's lecture. “Hey man, we're looking, maybe in all the wrong places, for freedom and joy and love and you're giving us rules and regulations. Why should we believe anything you say?” Jiminy's not giving them what they need if they only knew they needed it.
The show is kind of winding down. It's getting late.
Chet Helms, the hippie impresario who runs the Avalon, comes out to say goodnight to the hippies, including Walrus Pemmican and Suzie Creamcheese. All year, Chet has been struggling to compete with rival rock impresario Bill Graham for the best bands, the best poster artists, the most joy, the most love and, hopefully, have a few bucks left over.
Bill Graham is raking in the dough over there at the Fillmore. He's a business man, he has stumbled on a money machine and he is very good at turning it. Chet is more about the music and the good times, and although he is charging the same admission and featuring the same great bands, he and the Family Dog collective are just hanging on from show to show.
So Chet smiles his sweet eternal grin and says these words:
There are many who say 'O that we might see some good! Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord! You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound.
Hey, we all need some grain and some wine. Nothing wrong with that. But there's more to life than raking in the bucks. You know what? I'm going with the gladness in my heart.
I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.
Good night, everybody, stay safe! See you next week!
Today, for those of my generation and time and place, Bill Graham is remembered as a hard but decent guy, a good businessman who got rich and in the process helped a lot of talented people get known and established. Chet? Well, go look at his website here.
Chased by demons:
Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in a Los Angeles hotel in 1970.
The Raelettes – According to the movie Ray, Margie Hendrix died of a heroin overdose in 1973. Hope the others all all doing great.
Mike Bloomfield died of a heroin overdose in San Francisco in 1981
Paul Butterfield died of an alcohol and drugs overdose in 1987
Bill Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991.
Chet died from hepatitis in 2005.
Elvin Bishop – is still alive and performing, in spite of a devastating family tragedy. Somebody shake his hand.
Jiminy Cricket has returned to Pleasure Island where he continues to explain the rules of proper living to the bad boys who live there.
I heard from Walrus Pemmican not long ago. He is still seeking the farthest island in the farthest sea.
More about Walrus and Janis at Famous People I Never Knew 2: Janis Joplin
We're still at the heavenly Avalon Ballroom where Janis Joplin was wailing on Psalm 4. Then Janis' conscience suddenly jumped out in the form of Jiminy Cricket and started berating the hippies and flower children because they're little brats. Now the Pondering Pig feels called upon to deliver some edifying comments...
The trouble with Jiminy Cricket is that, although he often gives good advice, he delivers it in a tut-tut, looking down his nose sort of manner that turns people like
Walrus Pemmican off. Walrus is the young guy with the beatific smile and guru shirt who got reamed by Jiminy Cricket in the last post for harboring angry thoughts, and I knew him well. When he went dancing at the Avalon Ballroom with his old lady, as they called girl friends in those far off times, they didn't want to be acceptable to God, they wanted to be free. Walrus wasn't against being acceptable to God, he just didn't know anything about it, and neither did the other kids sitting cross-legged on the ballroom floor. Jiminy Cricket is speaking the truth about the lies and pretensions in their lives, but he's not exactly helping them change their hearts. Check out his next line:Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord!
Walrus is thinking, “Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord? Well, what happens if I accidentally offer a wrong sacrifice? Will God reject me like he did Cain in the Bible story?” All his rebellious instincts start coming out. But he's just looking for holes – to him, Cain and Abel is a story in a book, and The Lord's full name is The Lord of The Sleepers. Why would he put his trust in that God?”
Sorry if I am shocking anybody, but this guy David who wrote Psalm 4 is not communicating to the kids in the Avalon Ballroom, or any other ballroom in time. He is suggesting Walrus Pemmican obey the rules. Can you imagine? Why? Because I said so!
Any right-thinking rebel needs to understand the purpose of a rule. On the streets Walrus walks everyday he see cars with bumper stickers that read Question Authority and Ignore Alien Orders. In a world where the proper authorities have shown again and again you can't trust them, it's the only sane attitude.
The rules expressed in the Psalms themselves can be life-giving, survival tactics. It's not the rules' problem, the problem is the stuffy enemies of the young who turn them into umbrellas made for whacking.
Like this 'right sacrifice' business. Look, David was saying you'll be all right if you get the best unblemished lamb from your flock and take it down to the temple and offer that to God. That's how they did things in those days. It's got to be your best one, though. One little horrible skin disease and it's right out.
I like David a lot better in Psalm 51, when he says: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” It's the same idea, really, but applicable across the centuies.
For Walrus Pemmican,for instance, freedom brought with it a certain burden of guilt and sorrow. He was trying to live right, he really was, but he kept screwing up. Both he and his girl Suzie Creamcheese were chased by demons they couldn't see. Did they ever chase you?
They were young and beautiful, but there was some skin disease growing on their insides. If Walrus had known the Lord of the Sleepers could actually give him a clean, whole heart and a new, right spirit, and zero demons, he would have jumped...if he could actually feel on the inside like he looked on the outside, he would have offered that new heart to God in a second.
It's like that stiff word repentance. Once I understood it didn't mean some mysterious ritual where you put on a Christian suit, cut your hair short on the back and sides and chat with boring people while eating too many doughnuts, once I understood repentance actually meant accepting God's offer of a new and right spirit, then I was up for it.
Well, that's how the Walrus and his old lady are feeling about Jiminy Cricket's lecture. “Hey man, we're looking, maybe in all the wrong places, for freedom and joy and love and you're giving us rules and regulations. Why should we believe anything you say?” Jiminy's not giving them what they need if they only knew they needed it.
The show is kind of winding down. It's getting late.
Chet Helms, the hippie impresario who runs the Avalon, comes out to say goodnight to the hippies, including Walrus Pemmican and Suzie Creamcheese. All year, Chet has been struggling to compete with rival rock impresario Bill Graham for the best bands, the best poster artists, the most joy, the most love and, hopefully, have a few bucks left over.Bill Graham is raking in the dough over there at the Fillmore. He's a business man, he has stumbled on a money machine and he is very good at turning it. Chet is more about the music and the good times, and although he is charging the same admission and featuring the same great bands, he and the Family Dog collective are just hanging on from show to show.
So Chet smiles his sweet eternal grin and says these words:
There are many who say 'O that we might see some good! Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord! You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound.
Hey, we all need some grain and some wine. Nothing wrong with that. But there's more to life than raking in the bucks. You know what? I'm going with the gladness in my heart.
I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.
Good night, everybody, stay safe! See you next week!
Today, for those of my generation and time and place, Bill Graham is remembered as a hard but decent guy, a good businessman who got rich and in the process helped a lot of talented people get known and established. Chet? Well, go look at his website here.
Chased by demons:
Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in a Los Angeles hotel in 1970.
The Raelettes – According to the movie Ray, Margie Hendrix died of a heroin overdose in 1973. Hope the others all all doing great.
Mike Bloomfield died of a heroin overdose in San Francisco in 1981
Paul Butterfield died of an alcohol and drugs overdose in 1987
Bill Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991.
Chet died from hepatitis in 2005.
Elvin Bishop – is still alive and performing, in spite of a devastating family tragedy. Somebody shake his hand.
Jiminy Cricket has returned to Pleasure Island where he continues to explain the rules of proper living to the bad boys who live there.
I heard from Walrus Pemmican not long ago. He is still seeking the farthest island in the farthest sea.
More about Walrus and Janis at Famous People I Never Knew 2: Janis Joplin
Labels: Avalon Ballroom, Chet Helms, hippies, Psalms, San Francisco
posted by Christopher Newton at 1:00 PM
6 Comments:
I hate heroin almost as much as I hate hate!
At this point, the psalmist would finish with the אמן, in English spelling, oo'·mayn. In English spoken, amen. So it is.
I knew you'd figure a way to get Chet into this. I don't rightly know why I thought you would. Probably that portion of verse, "You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound"
exemplifies the attempted ethic of your era.
I believe Chet had a prophetic gift, whether he was a Christian believer or not. Doesn't matter. God uses tools from all strata and he definitely used Chet to exemplify that certain ethos we today somehow lack.
At that same time, the Dead were ending shows with a Bahamian lullaby, a song they played at the end of many shows and played through the end. It's a song Phil still plays at the end of many Phil and Friends shows...
"Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh won't you lay your head upon your saviour's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And I bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight."
Not having been there, my commentary is all second hand. Please correct me if I err. While the Walrus and Suzy might not have understood the whole of the Gospel message, there was abundant evidence of the Gospel example in that time. That desire for spiritual freedom and release from the useless laws of the time were maybe the most obvious.
Many people write off the sensibilities of the'60's as some sort of anomaly, a blip on the screen that we have somehow gotten past and now have the sarcastic ability to ridicule as meaningless.
I disagree. It's evident that many of the foolishness and excesses of that era or any era are best left in the heap of human experience. But that doesn't include all.
The Diggers (thanks for reminding me Foghorn and Patrushka)fed and clothed the people, doing what Jesus told Peter to do as recounted at the end of John's gospel account.
The Free Clinic that evolved at the same time, did much the same, feeding a need for the health and survival of the denizens of the Haight.
The Pig's friend, Chet, fed the spiritual need, that need exemplified in Ecclesiastes and the dance of joy found in many of the psalms.
Finally, I recall Neal Cassady. He was the link between two eras, the Holy Fool, who attempted the impossible. I borrow here from an American Orthodox website that better defines the role of the Holy Fool...
http://www.roca.org/oa/105/105f.htm
"The primary purpose of such an undertaking is to intensify humility and thereby to defeat the demon of vainglory, who avidly preys upon those richly endowed with spiritual gifts, those well advanced on the ladder to perfection. These ascetics feign madness, deliberately provoking others to make fun of them and offend them; they are voluntary martyrs, dying to the world, to what is considered "acceptable" and "reasonable,'' for the sake of a life hidden in Christ, a realm which lies above the level of purely human understanding. By their strange behavior and enigmatic words--they often speak in riddles and parables---these chosen ones of God also serve as living reminders of the transcendent aim of life. It has been noted that they appear in Christian societies at times of spiritual laxity: when piety has become mere habit, when Christian love runs shallow and people's hearts are not illumined by the grace of God."
I don't pretend to know anything of Neal's spirituality or where death has taken him. I do know though that God uses tools, like I said earlier, sometimes unlikely ones, to fulfill his purposes.
No, the times and experiences of that era, of which my time and experience were but a small part, live and continue, as they demonstrated what the apostle Paul referred to as that "law written on the heart".
אמן
Thanks Leo. It's great to see your brilliant, insightful comments here again. I was there. Pretty much through the whole era. I was formed by the Haight during that short era before it became a media circus.
For me, there was always that aching conflict between what we desparately wanted to be - free, godly, loving people with a vision...and how it was - the dirty steets, the runaways, the hippie capitalists opening their souvenir shops, LSD as dessert, instant gurus.
I don't know if I brought a certain cynicism about life with me to the party, or whether it was the pain of recognizing what human nature is.
I was primed in the Haight to become a Christian.
By the way,the architect of the hippie vision wasn't Chet, God bless him. The guy who had the vision and got it down on paper was a poet named Allen Cohen. He and his newspaper The Oracle. If you're not familiar with him, please look him up.To me, he personified all that was good about those times.
Hey Pig. I'm back again. Sent an email. Watch for it. Love the psalm series. Good words too Leo. Not much to add just keep on Truckin'. Amen. I like that
To quote a song that I wrote once:
"I used to have a real good time,
Flyin' higher and higher, feelin' fine;
But I can't keep track of the friends that have died,
Smack's a smokin' gun that shoots from inside...
Yeah, I used to have a real good time."
Regarding Freedom -
Here is a cut/paste of a comment I left on another blog some months back:
Both my fallen mortal nature and my life experiences have drawn me to want to be in control of my own life in every way. Perhaps the greatest challenge of my own Christian walk is to learn to submit my own rebellious nature to the will of the Father.
Sure, I believe IN Him, but to do I fully BELIEVE HIM , humbly trusting that His promises are sure? Trust is not my long suit. So this is something I often wrestle with.
I say that I know that with God all things are possible and yet I doubt at times that He REALLY will love or forgive ME. This is something I personally need to repent of on a regular basis!
When you wrote: “Our society's idea of freedom, and the one I had functioned with for so long, meant the "right" to do whatever I wanted, free from external restraints.”…. it touched a thought that I’m still working on to fully comprehend:
I am an avid kite flyer. Yesterday I was flying a big cobra parasail kite that is one of my favorites. Of course, to fly a kite we must have a string that holds the kite up in the sky. On the one hand, it may seem like the string is limiting, restricting, or in some way taking away the freedom of the kite to sail in all its glory out of my possessive desire to keep that kite under my own control. But that’s not true at all.
The physics of kite flying requires the string to EMPOWER the kite to sail with the wind. If I cut the string, the kite does not fly higher and higher. It crashes. The string that appears to be a binding limitation is actually the very thing that allows the kite to meet the full potential for flight.
Likewise, my spirit REQUIRES the limits and structure and rules of God’s commandments to empower my soul to fly to greet Him as I conform my will to restrict how I think or behave in accordance with His will. THAT is the paradox of true freedom.
Being free to fast during Lent, being free to avoid media with dark, unholy images, being free to avoid immodest clothing, are all GIFTS from the commandments that strengthen and empower me, not something to hold me back or control me.
And Spoke - while I agree that heroin is an ugly, harmful thing worthy of contempt, there is living proof at St. Silouan's that with God all things truly can be used for righteous purposes, even the poison of heroin addiction.
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