| Kookie Connections... where's the New Revolution? | 0 comments |
 2003-02-22 07:58, by Julie Solheim-RoeWay down down down the corridors of our dreaming life, the issues of war, bad art and a Bohemian life-- continue from the edge of love. I remember something from far over the cliffs of our eternal yearnings and fallings and callings of our name out, out of that bottomless pit of continuous awakenings... The Dream keeps on keepin' on... baby we're falling falling calling out and love's desire yes love's desire is a current of twisted fate and fallen lies. Certainly not one of my better poems... but written the other night in the dim-light Beatnik Cafe in Joshua Tree, on some cheap scraps of cafe napkins... I was invited by my new friend Elia Arce. Elia has been involved with many projects including the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), a performance group that grew out of a 1985 workshop for the homeless of Los Angeles, Cultural Media Icons.. and so much more... I wasn't at all amazed to find all the references to her work on google. Our mutual friend Jay Levin introduced us recently. I always know that the quality of heart and true folks that I meet via Jay could only be extraordinary. Elia's partner Ted Quinn has been hosting the Wednesday night 'Open Mic Night' at the Beatnik for over a year. Besides being a great song-writer, artist and activist, Ted Quinn is involved with a local recording studio in Joshua Tree which seems to be really attractive to LA artists wanting to escape Lala Lande to the High Desert. During the 'open mic' eve., another mutual friend of Jay's whom I remember from my old LA days with my beloved biz and play partner Flemming and his The New Civilization Network Salons and my Lights of the Round Table Ceremonies... Mr. Art Kunkin walked in. Ted of course had to make mention of how the night was like a Woody Allen movie, when you ask for a cultural icon by name and say he is needed... (Well... remember it was Allen that said, "sixty Percent of life is just turning up") ... Actually, when I had walked in Ted was reading an email which Paul Krassner, another cultural icon I met recently through Jay... the email was a list of the peace rally marchers, by number, by country and city. He said later it took 45 minutes to read. I need to get the organization's name that sent this out, but here the World Socialist Web Site has a great run down... Later Ted sang the lovely song 'Mrs. Lennon' in tribute to Yoko Ono, who turned 70 on Tuesday. Ted reminds us that she saved John from becoming the 'next Elvis'. He told a story of how after the Tokyo bombings, at 7 years old she took care of her 2 year old brother for days. When she was expressing her voice, she was often so misunderstood. Yoko seems to be one who understood how to use eccentric art forms to vent out what was NOT peaceful inside of us, in order to be a walking advertisement for peace in her lifestyle.. Ted mentioned how people like Lennon and Josephine Baker were asked to leave the country because of their ideals--and made a joke about Paris always looming in the wind. Link into how my friend Kelly says it was THEN in the days of the ex-pats of Hemmingway, Anais Ninn, Henry Miller... THERE and THEN... that art died. ... and maybe we are the last and only survivors of their off-beat ways.... I was struck through out the night with the idea of war, peace, love, oil, water, blood, sweat, artists, love, love and oh the agony of human love... the way the black sheep can find each other when everything is more fucked than ever. In Letecia's new blog, she speaks about all the poets that have showed up for peace. Why do we have to get so mad to be so alive? The contrasts between the 'logic' of the right and the 'insanity' of the artists... I see that when I read through all the websites I cite above for Art, Paul K, Elia, Jay, Ted... The black sheep conference can never really confer, or can it? And, why now it IS about the same issues my elders were ranting about in the '60s. My Glastonbury friend and neighbour Palden put it thusly on this issue of how I--the 1966 born Fire-Horse--seem to be today, working with the energies which this whole 'Revolution' crew started when I was just about the age of my 22 month old daughter: "Indeed, there's something significant somewhere in all this. I was thinking last night (and this isn't an ageist put-down) how, in the year when you were born, I was about to take my first acid trip using Californian Owsley acid (I grew up in Liverpool, where things were happening quite bigtime, at the time) - and somehow there's a connection there. (There's also a connection inasmuch as I was born in what had been the American Generals' HQ in England in WW2). I became aware, when recently at the Green Gathering, surrounded by thirtysomethings, enjoying it and also noticeably valued by them, of this energy-connection to do with the choices for change that I made at that time - which many of my generation, of course, don't share (or they've buried), and which many of your generation variously embody. The interesting thing here is that, while physically my generation is older (with some of the dubious and sometimes jaded wisdom arising from that) your generation is evolutionarily more advanced - as it now is with our respective children and juniors too."Well, I know how intellectually LESS advanced I am... but I seem to always run into this theme.. there's something to being born around this time of the crazy 'Revolution' of my beloved Jay and all these great counter-culturists... The madness, threads and rampant synchronicities continue... and the Dream beats on.... |