“I’ve got to get back to the land and set my soul free … “
Two of the coolest events of the ’60s just came together in the 21st century — and I lived it from start to finish.
The Merry Pranksters’ Bus, which pulled out of Ken Kesey’s house in La Honda on my June 14th birthday in 1964, came to Max Yasgur’s farm where Woodstock was born in 1969. Since then each of these events — painted buses traveling around full of fun-loving friends, and gatherings in fields for weekend concert communes — have become part of world-wide culture.
But this is where it all began — with a Bang!
.
And this time it all began with an unplanned dash — when the Kesey krewe got cancelled last minute out of some other festival and suddenly was heading for … Woodstock! … of course! … where it was supposed to be goin’ in the first damn place!
Mmmm … home again … Gotta be there —on Max’s farm, where Woodstock as we know it began … and where the Oregon creamery boys first joined up with the New York dairy farmer.
If you don’t know the backstory on Max, he was a respected, if iconoclastic, ‘elder statesman’ farmer and thousand-acre landowner in this area of Sullivan County, NY, even though he was only 49 years old at the time of the festival. (And what a 50th he must have had that December!) Max was known to speak his mind and go his own way in a conservative old-world rural culture that was very much go-along-get-along.
The festival organizers were kicked off of their months-of-development site just 30 days before the festival was to begin. Max had been reading in the local papers about the trouble “these kids” were having, and told them when they first met, “I want to help you boys. You got the raw end of the deal.” He had a very evolved philosophy of equality and justice — a living 20th century Thoreau, he was a pro-active ethicist for whom a handshake was a binding contract — and injustice did not sit well with him. Plus, he was also a pretty sharp businessman.
Picture Woody Allen meets Jack Benny – as Max is noodling around his farm all weekend licking the end of his pencil and jotting down every bucket of milk a cow didn’t deliver to make sure he was covered for it. But beyond his pencilings, because it was Max, and the respectful relationship they evolved, the promoters spent months and tens of thousands of extra dollars restoring his land to what it was when they arrived.
One story, to give you the idea, and something only his wife Miriam could relate: When word spread that Max was talking to these ‘hippies’ about having this banned festival on his farm, somebody put up a sign along the Route 17B road in front of his house — “Stop Max’s hippy music festival — Buy no milk.”When Max & Miriam saw it for the first time, as she recalled — “I thought, ‘You don’t know Max. Now it’s going to happen.’ That did it. He just turned to me and said, ‘Is it alright with you?’ … I knew he was not going to get past this sign, so I said, ‘I guess we’re gonna have a festival.’ And he said, ‘Yup, we’re gonna have a festival.’ And that was it.”
Max would have been a great political leader or writer or millionaire businessman if just a couple cells had been different. But ol’ Jack Fate cast this activist philosopher as a farmer — who happened to have a perfect natural amphitheater in the same neck of the world as that little artists’ colony that Dylan happened to stumble into a few summers earlier.
And thus, in one of the festival’s innumerable karmic twists, the organizers were thrown out of the town of Wallkill and onto Max Yasgur’s farm along Happy Avenue in Bethel(hem). There was a whole lotta Shinin’ goin’ on with this man and this moment..
And up to his homestead we did roll — bought in 1985 by Roy Howard and now run by his widow, Jeryl Abramson, in The Spirit, letting Woodstockians the whirled over gather on Max’s land every anniversary since 1998. And this was only the second year it’s been legal!
Jeryl Abramson taking The Oath at The Bus.
.
As soon as you come up the small rise onto the land — there’s Max’s house — where the deal for the festival was consummated — and where it’s honored with an official historical marker befitting an official historic figure.
And there’s … The Bus! The Magic Bus. The Kesey Bus. Furthur. The psychedelic painted school bus that spawned it all.
.
It wasn’t the same Beat-up 1939 International Harvester that Neal Cassady drove across the country in 1964 or came to Woodstock in ’69, but as Father Ken maintained: It was the same spirit — much like Max’s homestead wasn’t the actual field for the concert in 1969 — but was the same spirit being created by its current inhabitants.
The Bus at Woodstock ’69
In the Crazy Karma 2014 Dept.: So, we hang out Thursday night in the anticipation glow, then I retired to the nearby cheap motor hotel I found for the night — flipped on the CNN — and there’s Kesey’s bus!! . . . wait–what?!?! And there’s Kesey & Babbs talkin’ about La Honda and the birth of it all! And they’re ravin’ on about Kerouac!!! Rub my eyes and ding my bell! It’s their series “The Sixties,” and the “Sex, Drugs, & Rock n Roll” episode! Jack didn’t make Woodstock or ride on The Bus — but here he was being described on CNN as The Father of us all ! — the On The Road back-to-the-land mountain climbing searcher who put into poetic prose the rose we were all smelling so sweetly.
And The Chief saw to it that they were reunited in the driver’s cockpit of the new starship to deep space.
.
On Friday morning, there was Zane bright and early manning the merch tent, selling everything from painted toy buses and fridge magnets (I got one of each), to prankster t-shirts and DVDs of “the world’s mightiest home movie” as the original Pranksters dubbed their footage from the first trip (I scored a shmancy original Acid Test poster t-shirt – already had the movies).
Floating around The Bus were the film crew — appropriately from British Columbia — and all sorts of Next Generation Pranksters like Chris Foster who appeared as The Wizard, Carmen Miranda, and a psychedelic cowboy over each of the three days, and actually lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where I’d just recently summited with Neal’s son John Cassady, director Walter Salles, and On The Road scroll preserver Jim Canary for the “On The Road” movie premiere.
.
And then there was Milton, the George Walker of this incarnation, responsibly covering the practical bases; and Thumpah who came from the High Times Cannabis Cup tribe and had actually filmed my induction of Jack and Neal into the Counter-Culture Hall of Fame in Amsterdam in 1999. And in the role of Babbs on this tour of duty is Lieutenant Derek Stevens making sure the operation ran with military precision. Or at least Prankster precision.
But this was no dosed-kool-aid acid party. It was a business, and they’re rightfully concerned The Bus is a blazing target in this crazy militarized America — so they have to play it clean.
The real action and spirit evocation was out in the woods where decades of the owners hosting events had resulted in dirt roads and footpaths and campsites and drum circle centers and full-on stages for non-stop performances all day and night. There were deliciously elaborate kitchens making the best pizza I’ve had since New York, and a breakfast guy making vegi-rich omelets that put the best restaurants to shame — in price and quality. Then there was the giant tent general store selling everything — camping supplies, toiletries, first-aid stuff, cigs, batteries and whatever a prankster or camper of eternity might need.
Then there were the art installations, like Christopher VanderEssen’s, who created a florescent blacklight dreamcatcher weaving through the woods —
and custom painted clothes like on the back of the new Kesey Acid Test poster t-shirt — with Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead and The Merry Pranksters listed as the entertainment!
.
Or Eddy Miller the bubble man using giant nets to create clouds of bubbles sparkling across the fields as little kids screamed in joy chasing them …
and eyeful Canadians captured them …
It’s where you’d meet people named Dragon Fly or Band-Aide or Thumper or Normal or Sky or Lake, and every single person is saying “High” to every single other person in this church of camaraderie. . . . “Everywhere was a song and a celebration …”
Meanwhile, back at The Bus, I ended up talking to this colorful couple, Rick and Sherry. He went to the first Woodstock, arriving Thursday morning, parking his car on site, settin up their tent in the woods, then wandering over to the field where they found a spot 30 feet from the stage and never moved (or went back to their tent and car) until Monday! He was wearing this cap of rainbow dreads, and she was under a colorful jester’s hat with dangling bells, and to be quite confessional, I was feeling a little under-dressed.
And they were like most of the people I met here — super smart. This wasn’t a bunch of brain-dead loogans, but rather highly evolved explorers and sophisticated pranksters. People who knew how to Adventure, and survive on a farm for a long weekend, and how to make fun happen.In fact, it was over an in-depth discussion of Obamacare (not positive) that Rick & Sherry & I really bonded, and were joined by The Wizard, Chris Foster, talking through his costume, and the four of us thereafter became a fairly inseparable quartet — and by Sunday realized we would be for life.
.
The Spirit of Woodstock was alive — and being created by the people — not rock stars or anyone else dictating from on high. It was an organic connection among souls who’d been driven to drive some distance to spend a formless whacky weekend in the woods. Not only was no one aggressively drunk, but I never heard a harsh word spoken over four days. When I first heard someone impatient and frustrated a few days later, it sounded so foreign and out of place and unnecessary and unhappy.
And that’s what these things do — the fabric of your soul becomes dipped in a rainbow dye and permanently transformed by the swirling colors of love and happiness and peacefulness and camaraderie all collectively blending together — all based on happenstance … with a purpose. Who knows what’s going to happen or who you’re going to meet? But tossing yourself into this tribal gathering of like-minded Adventurers, you’ll go lots of somewheres cool.Like the endless jam sessions going on all over the fields — with the Grateful Dead dominating the airwaves — and sumpthin I never saw before — a tent with two drum kits!!
Then there was the woman running the booth for the non-profit Eden’s Rose Foundation that sells handmade alpaca clothes and hardwood carvings (including of the Ice Cream Kid and Cats Under The Stars and all sorts of Grateful Dead images) made by native tribes in the jungles of Peru and Brazil and Bolivia, and the money goes directly back to the local tribes to keep their ancient cultures self-sustaining.
And hanging here at this soulful booth I learned about “spunions” — the new term for people who are well spun and happily blazing in the middle of the night. And in this scene — where no one is drunk and stumbling around and starting fights, but so many are so high — it really puts a lie to our drug & alcohol laws. High people wander through the woods like a pack of wild comedians cracking each other up, their laughter heard long before you see them, or like gentle little children in a fairy tale amazed at everything they see. Hanging at the booth and seeing all the traffic flow in and out, it would have been completely different if they were as drunk as they were high.
And in a perfect parallel corollary, the Woodstock Museum Director confirmed what friends and facility staff had already mentioned — that it was the drunks, particularly at the “country” shows that were the only times they had problems.
Anyway . . . There was this HUGE arc of people — an anthropologists delight! — from 4 & 5 year old kids running around playing, to 70 & 80 year olds shuffling along who’d been at the first Woodstock — and both ends of the spectrum beaming beatific faces of joy. Whatever your age, there was a gorgeous farmful of friendly people to play with.
.
And a funny-nice thing from Sunday afternoon — all weekend we’d been hearing excellent bands play their own stuff along with The Dead, The Band, Santana, CSNY, etc. … as you do at any of these Woodstock reunions or music festivals in the woods. But all of a sudden I’m hearing some girl singing “Brand New Key” by Melanie!
“No way! This is so great!” Melanie and I had a memorable flirty evening on the night of the Folk City Anniversary Concert and afterparty in New York in 1980-something, and I always thought she was the real deal — very spiritual and spirited. So, I’m boppin’ away to this, and what does the girl singer on stage do next? but the hit song Melanie wrote about her historic unplanned performance at Woodstock, “Candles In The Rain.“
.
.
And dancing in front of the stage is Rachel, who’d been Stage Manager on the main double-stage all weekend. You don’t meet many women stage managers period, let alone running the main stage of a major festival — with acts one after another using two stages side-by-side so each band has the other’s performance time to set up. And they had a different act every 15, 30, 45 minutes from 9:30AM till 3AM. Finally by Sunday afternoon here she was dancing with me and everybody else to “Candles In The Rain.” And after it’s over we have a big hug, and I say, “How great is it to hear Melanie played at Woodstock?!”
And she goes, “And by her daughter no less!”
“What?!?!“
And sure enough … a little later I’m hangin’ at the Blue Bomber which was centrally located between The Bus and The Woods, and I look over next to me and there she is! Jeordie, Melanie’s daughter, with her guitar player! And the poor bastards are trying to open some nice indi beers without an opener.See … that’s the difference between our two countries — even cool Americans don’t know how to pop a cold one with a lighter. And these micro-breweries have quite the pop with their lively brews — and I could send those puppies half-way across the field, impressing the hell out of ol’ Melanie Jr. And suddenly we’re huggin’ n flirtin’ and I’m thinkin’ this whole Woodstock thing is alright.
.
Back at The Bus, there were any number of adventures. At one point they said they wanted to go “out front” to take some pictures with The Bus on The Farm. ‘Course I wanted to be in on that, but Prankster plans are like dreams — they might be real or they might go poof — they might be right now, or in ten days, or just a goof.
At some point I’m hanging in the woods at the dual main stages when a telepathic spark went off in me bean — “Wait a minute — maybe they’re takin’ the picture!” And as I walked out into the clearing — sure enough — The Bus was missing! I scooched as fast as my skinny legs could scooch me back to The Mighty Blue Bomber, jumped in to go find The Bus, and Boom! right around the corner there they were parked under Yasgur’s big barn sign! Bolted over with my camera … just as they were coming down off the roof! . . . Bummer!!
But there was no way I was going to miss this if I could do anything about it, so I ran over and spotted this girl Angie Lee I’d been talking to in the scene, handed her my camera with instructions to shoot away like crazy, then ran to the back of the bus before everyone got off, and climbed on up and said I had to get my pic with the Woodstock and Yasgur’s signs — which was a bit forward of me telling these stray cat Pranksters what to do — but sure enough they went for it — and it led to a whole new round of shots — with other photographers falling into the scene who’d missed the spontaneous moment earlier now catching it, and suddenly there was a whole second photoshoot going down cuz I’d insisted on it!
As my new best friend Sherry wisely says, “What’s meant to be will not pass you by.”
See … these are the truths you re-learn at Woodstock.
.
Or then there was the time The Bus was thinking of maybe going to the original Woodstock site and museum just a mile down Route 17B at the new Bethel Woods Arts Center. ‘Course this plan muddled around all day until I decided I wanted to go over there for reasons also including porcelain facilities and free wifi. So I did, parking with a nice view of the road, and sure enough before long this bright blue bus came barreling along out of the dark tree tunnel with a loaded rooftop including Thumpah tootling the multitudes with his flute and everyone whooping and waving and pranking the unsuspecting touri wandering the fancy grounds.
Furthur at the Woodstock corner — Hurd and West Shore Roads.
And just as this was happening, in the magic Crazy Karma synch that is Pranksterhood, Museum Director Wade was just leaving for the day and spotted them and screeched over in his car, and offered to let The Bus drive up the walkway to the front doors of the museum! So, suddenly there was the larger-than-life psychedelic Magic Bus parked at the doors to Woodstock, just like the first Bus had been. And of course Mr. Museum Director comps us all in (normally $15 per) and before you know it the unsuspecting museum goers are overrun with Camp Prankster colors and voices and giggles and music.
I hadn’t yet shown Zane the fancy Bethel Woods pamphlet that had an aerial shot of the ’69 crowd on the front cover — and a Prankster bus on the back!
.
And just as I’m showing him this, we turn a corner in the museum — and there it is! A bus based on his Dad’s is the promotional and literal centerpiece of The Woodstock Museum! And we climb aboard and … they’ve made a movie about The Bus and the Hog Farm that’s playing on the inside windshield of the bus! And they’re interviewing Max’s son Sam … and I’m … sitting with Ken’s son Zane … in a psychedelic school bus at Woodstock watching a movie about his Dad’s psychedelic school bus at Woodstock … while Furthur’s sitting out front!
Mind = blown!
.
Or there was the time we all went for a Pranksters Walkabout late Saturday night, about 20 of us in a roaming nomadic crazy loud krewe with light sticks and magic wands and guitars and flutes and drums and pretty girls and silly boys making noise and begetting smiles and breaking into song as we ambled along.
At some point we found ourselves at the giant nearly abandoned 3-ring drum circle in the jungle dark, and the band members and some singers broke into funny falsetto versions of Led Zeppelin songs, while Zane’s throwing out zany one-liners like his father would — delivered dry and coming from some alternate universe. Somebody mentioned the bell that fell off the bus and almost hit the follow car, and he goes, “That car isn’t done being hit yet.” Somebody said, “There’s certain things that must remain unsaid.” Zane pops, “That’s the first rule of Prankster Club.” And it was all in perfect harmony with The Unspoken Thing — San Francisco comic and de facto Prankster Robin Williams … who we just lost and were collectively mourning.
It wasn’t dark, but it was getting there. Comedy in the dark, but not dark comedy. You didn’t know who was riffing unless you recognized their voice, and everyone was playing along, banging the gong, beating the drum, all with a Robert Plant falsetto as the giggling soundtrack.
.
.
Or there was that sunset moment on Sunday where I was tuned into the simultaneous sacredness of the celestial and human event, and going around suggesting to people like new Prankster Moray that I use their camera to take pics of them in that special light, when Zane picked up on what I was doing, the moment I was capturing, and he rounded up the stray cat krewe and wandered us out to the open field between Max’s house and barn and took our jumping-for-joy-Woodstock photos.
And Zane tells us this story of how his Dad would gather people for sunset and watch for the green flash of light just as the sun crosses out of sight, and of course we all do this … and I think I’m seeing flashes — but it may have been from all the jumping we just did!
Anyway, as he’s telling the story in his big booming Oregon farmer Kesey voice — he was looking me right in the eye and telling it directly to me. And I’m thinkin’ this whole Prankster thing is alright.
.
Later I started riffing with the Canadian film crew, some B.C. buds that went by Colby and Puds, and even though it’s late in the proceedings I’m spewing my usual nonsense that to some people occasionally sounds articulate, and Puds sez, “I gotta interview you for the movie. Would you mind?” It felt like I hadn’t had a shower since July or a night’s sleep since June, but The Bus was clanging it’s bell to leave for D.C. in the morning, and now the bell hath tolled for thee.
Puds starts lookin around for a set — someone’s on The Bus doin’ sumpthin’ — and he remembers the giant Woodstock banner he bought that afternoon using Prankster dollars, which was just play money they printed but were able to trade for cool shit. So, BOOM! We hang the flag over the inside of the back door of their equipment truck (which Zane calls, “Our trunk”) and climb inside and do a whole long interview there where I riffed on some lessons I learned from Father Ken (soon to be available in my book about our first hang), and how I could see the father in the son with his quick dry one-liners, and how the bus has influenced generations — and even in my three-days-of-Woodstock madness I knew any answer had to be 15, 30 seconds tops. No long winding Brian stories here — conscious to speak in soundbites cuz they’re making such an epic new Mightiest Home Movie that there’s gonna be a whole lotta noodles to tootle.
And by the time we’re done, it was 10:30 Sunday night, and Lieutenant Hassett’s watchin’ his watch and knows the only nearby beer store is closing at 11, so in this wonderful living flashback to our Canadian roots, me and ol’ B.C. Puds make a last-dash Beer Run just like the old days — two wise Canucks swimming away from the ducks to try our luck and sure enough! Bingo! We’re bongo with bounties of brewskies for blast-off!
And after Zane and I had not really connected when I first arrived, by the end of the last day, it was just he and I together at the back of The Bus as he wound up the giant flags into ropes so he could tie them to the ship — the Stars & Stripes and the Oregon State (the only state flag in America with something on both sides, he tells me with pride) in preparation for their highway-driving departure in the morning. It was just the two of us rapping and wrapping the show — about what worked (everything above plus the impromptu gig they did one morning that I missed), and what didn’t (they shoulda been parked down in the woods), but he had a beatific smiling calm about him that another show was successfully done, and of all the sites they visited this was the first one The Bus had been to before, and that living history was meeting living history (maybe it was me who said that) and that the two family reunions had blended so well..And by now the Woodstockians and Pranksters have morphed back into the world around us, and maybe you can’t even recognize who we are. And The Bus has continued it’s Trip, toootling the multitudes in Washington and New York and Cleveland and Chicago on the never-ending Road Trip started by Jack and driven by Neal and jumped on by Jerry and captained by Ken that’s still hugging hearts with loving arms and ever going → .
And if you wanna go Furthur still — here’s the part where I compared the first Obama Inauguration to Woodstock — and one Michael Lang, conceiver and creator of Woodstock, chose to use it as the climax of his book on the matter.
Or here’s the tale of first meeting Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes and Herbert Huncke at “the Woodstock of the Beats” — the Boulder ’82 SuperSummit — where I also met Ken for the first time and he invited me back to his house and I wrote a whole book about it coming out later this year.
Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld were the Lennon & McCartney of comedy.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
Larry was a Lennon — mercurial, opinionated, sharp tongued, bull-headed, idea generating, creatively uncompromising, a supremely gifted artist born to his medium, with an enormous elaborate expansive vision.
And Jerry was the McCartney — an equal creative master, but more easy-going, conciliatory, more camera-friendly, certainly more camera-comfortable, and definitely more “pop” and popular.
They each excelled at things the other didn’t — while collaborating in their common passion — and making each other laugh. They found their equal, their sparring partner, their riff mate, their sentence finisher, their line perfecter, their bullshit detector — or as Jerry called it, their “cross filter.”
Like Lennon & McCartney, Larry & Jerry might have ended up having successful individual careers had they not met the other, but the two forces collaborating, bouncing ideas off each other, harmonizing on both the surface and the deepest levels, created something that outshone all their peers around them.
Both the band and the TV show lasted 9 years, and the dissolution of each was a major cultural event when it happened. Here you can hear Jerry citing The Beatles as the reason for ending the show when he did.
And they were both Fab Fours — both based on four creative characters, all of whom were masters of their domain. I mean — their instrument.
And it was the senior creative pairings who selected their supporting players, which in both cases were integral to the endeavour’s overall success.
And each one of both pairs went on to acclaimed solo careers, but in this case Larry was more the hit-making McCartney with his Emmy-winning “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and Jerry more the reclusive John with his unannounced small club appearances and out of the mainstream (not on TV) “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.”
And in the synchronistic symmetry of it all, both pairings had a fellow creative genius in the booth with the same name as one of the principals — Larry Charles collaborating with Larry David, and George Martin with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
And both tandems were based first and foremost on writing — 2:30 songs or 23 minute episodes. Without the writing, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. .
♣
Early in the Seinfeld run, Jerry said, “People always ask me, ‘What show is your show like?’ And I always answer Abbott & Costello.” The rapid-fire banter — or what Jerry calls the “musical math” — runs through the whole series, especially in, say, The Bubble Boy, or the classic Kramer–Newman exchanges in The Ticket when Kramer’s been hit on the head and can’t remember his alibi. Although there was a wide spectrum of colorful characters to employ, the dialog Larry & Jerry were naturally predisposed to write was up-tempo duets.
And in further keeping with their love for Bud & Lou (as they called them) and their other comedic hero duo Laurel and Hardy, they were conscious to have the physical distinctions of the short chubby guy (including Newman) and the tall lanky guy — with the hair that started to stand straight up and make him even taller by season 3.
Larry & Jerry even bequeathed George Costanza the middle name of Louis as an homage to Lou Costello; and as Jerry says, he saw his role as the Bud Abbott straight man. He talked about some of this with places like the New York Times and Major League Baseball (and here) discussing “Who’s on first?”
The brilliant comic Larry Miller said of the Seinfeld–Abbott & Costello comedic harmony — “They’d both take a premise that it tissue thin, and just keep dancing on it.”
Jerry talks a bit about his love for Abbott & Costello here —
.
And here’s the ’93 Abbott & Costello special he refers to —
Their roots in the classic comic masters runs deep.
Jason Alexander said Ralph Kramden was a big inspiration for how he played George. Michael Richards talks about studying the Marx Brothers and how he consciously brought that ensemble rapport to the Seinfeld team. Among other things, the show did their take on the classic stateroom scene from A Night At The Opera in the episode where Elaine’s using a broom closet as a fake apartment. At different times Jerry can be seen doing the besieged and flustered Don Knotts. And of course the futile yet never-ending scheming by the less than honorable leads follows in a direct comedic lineage from Sgt. Bilko to The Three Stooges and W.C. Fields.
Another source Larry & Jerry drew heavily from was The Jack Benny Program where an always put-upon well known comedian played an always put-upon well known comedian of the same name, involving the typical events and wise-cracking characters in the performer’s life. And their homage extended to stylistic choices like using exaggerated facial expressions as punch lines, putting a painfully petty cheapskate front and center, and being happily impolitic, unsentimental, and unrepentant — living up to the famous Seinfeld writers/cast motto: “No hugging, no learning.” 😉
A noted cinephile friend of mine, Ted The Fiddler, pointed out other subtle connections between the two show’s writing styles — “Having Kramer hit a golf ball into the ocean at the end of an episode as the credits roll, and then George finds a golf ball in the blow hole of a beached whale two weeks later. The idea of setting up the joke a week or more before the punch line. Each joke having three punch lines, each one getting a slightly bigger laugh. 19 major events in a half hour show … the pacing of the show. As a big Jack Benny fan, those are the echoes I enjoy the most.”
.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
When Jerry, Larry & Larry describe the motivation behind the writing, they use words like tight, dense, clean, no fat. In fact, the shows were so scrupulously trimmed that a “scene” might be less than 5 seconds with only one word or line of dialog before the next fast cut. Because of this precision sculpting and intricate four-story plotting, Seinfeld scripts often ran up to 70 pages — 20 pages longer than a one hour show.
Also of interest — every joke, routine, and script Seinfeld ever wrote, was originally written longhand on a yellow legal pad using a clear-barrel blue Bic pen. From his first days striving to be a comedian until the present, he’s never varied from his method.
Here’s an excellent NYT video on how he crafted his material –
The initial casting was so determinative to the success of the show. The talent and alchemy of The Founding Four was the reason it became a show. The series was such a longshot to begin with and got the smallest first season order in the history of network television — 4 episodes. If they had scored about one percentage point lower in ratings, it would not have just made the cut for a slightly longer trial of 13 episodes for a second season, which it then only barely survived to be given a full order for the third season. If the three hired principals — Jason Alexander, Michael Richards and Julia Louis-Dreyfus — had not been as exceptional as they were, it never would have survived those lean early years.
When the show first aired, prolly like most people, I focused on George. Jason Alexander was already a well-known (and Tony-winning) theater actor in my and the show’s hometown of New York, and he was the fresh television voice of the never-heard-before Larry David.
When I revisited the series in reruns, I couldn’t take my eyes of Julia, especially when she was not delivering lines — all the little things she was doing to support the moment.
And then in the last year, watching all the outtakes and interviews and the “How It Began” doc and so on, Michael Richards has absolutely blown me away. What a masterpiece of a character he created. And it was largely Michael who did that. Kramer was written (at first) as a “hipster doofus” but it was Richards who came up with the idea that Kramer was not dumber than everybody else — he was smarter. And that became the key to how the character evolved from Larry & Jerry’s original concept.
As Jason Alexander put it, “Michael drove himself to these levels of creativity that were extraordinary. I don’t think I’ve ever come across another actor that had that combination of manic drive, that off-beat sensibility, and the genetics of what his body could do to create that character. It was one of those kismet meetings of actor and role that becomes legendary.” Or as Jerry Stiller put it succinctly, “He had a mercurial mind in a weightless body.”
If there had to be multiple takes, he would play every one differently, which in turn kept his castmates on their razor’s edge. And he was so funny, as the blooper reels reveal, he regularly caused the other actors to lose it in the middle of a scene, often literally doubling over with laughter … and the whole time, he never breaks character.
And then to learn how he studied with Stella Adler (who studied with Stanislavsky, and who taught his Method to Brando, De Niro and loads of the other best actors you’ve ever seen) … and all of the on-set stories about his concentration and preparation … and how he was the first of them to win an Emmy … then won three of them … and how he’s equal parts cerebral and slapstick, and an absolute master of both … he’s now up there in the very highest pantheon of actors in my book, even if just for this one character … one who can pratfall alongside Basil Fawlty and Ed Norton as the funniest physical characters in the history of sitcoms.
He did the role for 9 years and there isn’t a bad Kramer episode. In fact there isn’t a scene — or line — that he doesn’t absolutely slay.
And as a funny aside and proof of his effectiveness, the producers eventually had to instruct the studio audiences to not applaud his entrances because it was throwing off the timing of the scenes.
I highly recommended this clip on how Michael Richards created Kramer —
On a personal level, during the entire run of the show, I was the same age as the characters, living uptown in Manhattan, working and performing in the arts (like Jerry), with all sorts of crazy friends like Kramer and George, and a girlfriend whose face looked very much like Elaine’s.
For us New Yorkers, it was kind of “our” show, and it always sort of surprised us that it was also so popular everywhere else. The issues were our issues — parking spaces, urban dating, transitory jobs — and the characters were the characters we lived with — cab drivers, street people, oddball proprietors. It was so definitively New York — even though the creators were by then living in L.A. — like James Joyce creating Dublin from France.
In fact, the out-of-town popularity is exactly why the show was picked up in the first place. The first four episodes did well on the coasts and in large urban markets, but what surprised NBC was that the ratings in small towns in the Midwest were the same as they were in New York and Philadelphia.
It really did become “Must See TV” as the NBC slogan of the time called Thursday nights because you knew whatever you did the next day, somebody’d say, “Did you see Seinfeld last night?” … plus … you really wanted to see it!
My theory is that although it was a take on big city life, Jerry himself grew up in the quintessential suburban town of Massapequa (Long Island), which could be Anytown, North America. As Jerry said of his world, “Massapequa is an old Indian word for ‘near the mall'” — with noodgy parents, gossiping friends, and the same first world problems and aggravations that everyone else was trying to shake off by watching a little tube after a long day.
. And then there’s the whole Kerouac angle I love. One of my favorite authors was an early proponent of using the stories of one’s life as the subject for his autobiographical novels — and here’s autobiographical comedy! There hasn’t been a sitcom in the history of television that was the writers’ real lives as completely as Seinfeld.
When the network made one non-negotiable demand for the first season greenlight, it was that there had to be a strong female character equal to the three male leads. Larry David thought of an old girlfriend, Maggie Cassidy, I mean Monica Yates, who became a friend after they broke up, and realized that was the way to do it. Jerry had had a similar experience with the comedian Carol Leifer, and so with each of the creators strongly grounded in the concept of the ex-girlfriend as friend, Elaine Benes was born.
And of course the roman à clef copping extends to the real nextdoor neighbor named Kramer — and to countless scripts — from the Soup Nazi to waiting in a Chinese restaurant, from negotiating rules with an ex so they can have sex to the entire show-within-a-show storyline. And they also actively encouraged and mined the other writers’ and friend’s real-life moments and stories as comedic fodder. The B.O. in the car, the cutting a chocolate bar with a knife and fork, the trying to help a small neighborhood restaurant and endless other storylines and details were plucked from their personal conversations and turned into national conversations, yada yada yada.
. But I mean … the whole Kerouac / Beat symmetry … set in New York … almost in the same neighborhood around Columbia … young New Yorkers on the town, on the make, out for kicks … with George Costanza as their Gregory Corso or Henri Cru, always scheming, always workin’ the angles, but never hitting the jackpot.
Kramer is obviously Burroughs — the tall, skinny, knowing, oddly dressed, unpredictable eccentric who didn’t quite fit in with the others but yet was somehow part of them.
Jerry is clearly Kerouac — at the center of everything and using his friends as the inspiration for his work. And of course Jack’s longtime hometown of Northport isn’t that far from Massapequa in geography or mindset.
The Beats never really had an Elaine, but in a way she was the Ginsberg through-line, collaborating with all the others, ambitious, always with an eye for the boys, and an ability to turn on the charm and work the room that the others just didn’t have.
And if anybody’s Neal Cassady it’s the behind-the-scenes (unpublished) Larry David, the catalytic partner for Kerouac/Seinfeld, the manifestation of the entire enterprise, the “god” the others looked up to.
And I think I’m fine with keeping Leo & Gabrielle as Jerry/Jack’s parents. But since we’re here, I’m gonna go ahead and cast Truman Capote as Newman, Lou Little as the Soup Nazi, and Peter Orlovsky as Puddy.
Some tasty tidbits I came across on the journey …
NBC President Brandon Tartikoff after the Michael Richards audition: “Well, if you want funny … .”
George Shapiro and Howard West, who managed up-and-coming comic Jerry Seinfeld in the ’80s, also handled Carl Reiner, so they had regular contact with his son Rob, who had just started Castle Rock in 1987 (along with 4 others), and who ended up producing the show starting in 1989.
For Jason Alexander’s audition, and in his performance in the pilot and first couple episodes, he was playing George as Woody Allen. A couple episodes in, he found out George was based on Larry David, so then began doing “the best Larry David I could.”
It originally premiered as “The Seinfeld Chronicles” before being shortened to “Seinfeld” — but when Jerry & Larry were developing it and submitted the first script, they called it “Stand-Up.”
Just before the show first aired, Jerry asked the most experienced veteran in the ensemble, Jason Alexander, if he thought the show had a chance. Jason answered it didn’t, “Because the audience for this show is me, and I don’t watch TV.”
Larry David wrote / created and was George. Jerry ditto Jerry. But it was Larry Charles who specifically focused on / wrote for and developed Kramer (along with Michael Richards).
Every episode title (except “Male Unbonding”) begins with “The…” then names something from the episode. Larry & Jerry instituted this because they didn’t want the writers wasting time creating clever titles.
Although Larry & Jerry have official writing credit on only 60 and 16 of the 180 episodes respectfully, they re-wrote / transformed / “worked their magic” (as the other writers put it) on every script once it was handed in.
Not only were the NBC execs famously opposed to the Chinese Restaurant episode, but also to the entire show-within-a-show story arc. And so was Jason Alexander. (!) They all quickly came around, however, once the first shows were taped.
Both Jerry and George had two dads. Each of their fathers started out with actors who were replaced by different actors by the character’s second appearance and thereafter.
Keith Hernandez found out after-the-fact that his two-episode storyline was written to be cut back to one if it turned out he sucked.
Joshua White (of the famed psychedelic Joshua Light Show of the late ’60s) actually directed an early episode of Seinfeld (“The Library,” 3rd season, 1991). He had directed a Carol Leifer special the year before, so that’s prolly how it happened, but it certainly shows the renegade Prankster mindset of the project. 😉
And yet, from what I’ve learned, none of the principals drank at all, and definitely didn’t use drugs. Just about every other artist in every medium I’ve ever loved, had a drug or alcohol problem. But all four leads plus L.D. (and probably most everybody else, if that was the standard set from the top) were mind-bogglingly stimulant-free.
Jerry’s fictional apt. was at 129 West 81st Street, apt. 5A — but the exterior used in the show is actually a building in Los Angeles. Then the real Jerry Seinfeld ending up buying his multi-condo New York uber-pad at West 81st & Central Park West.
The trademark funky bass lines between scenes were actually played on a Korg synthesizer. Bummer.
Out of the four central characters, Kramer is the only one to never have had an “inner monologue.” ie; He’s the only character whose inner thoughts we never hear.
During the show’s run, players on the Buffalo Sabres nicknamed their teammate (and the greatest goalie of all time) Dominik Hasek, “Kramer” because he was so weird and funny (to go with his tall and lanky).
Michael Richards crossed over and appeared as Kramer in a first season episode of Mad About You, playing the guy who subletted Paul’s bachelor apartment.
In another crossover, on The Larry Sanders Show, Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) wakes up on Jerry’s couch.
But most cooly — Sopranos creator David Chase suggested after both series had concluded that his show and Seinfeld should have switched endings.
Think about THAT for a minute. 😉
Various recurring and one-off guest stars (many of whom were not “stars” at the time) —
Jerry Stiller (as George’s father)
Lloyd Bridges (in his final TV appearance)
Philip Baker Hall (the great character actor from Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Argo and about a 150 other movies)
Paul Gleason (who was Jack Kerouac’s friend in the early ’60s)
Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill Murray’s brother)
Bill Macy (Maude‘s husband)
Robert Wagner and real-life wife Jill St. John (Diamonds Are Forever)
George Wendt (from Cheers, whose time-slot Seinfeld took over the following year)
John Randolph (as George’s first father)
Bill Saluga (the “You can call me Ray, …” guy)
Candice Bergen (as Murphy Brown)
Teri Hatcher (and she was spectacular!)
Raquel Welch (and what’s more than “spectacular”?)
Bette Midler (who’s always spectacular!)
Marisa Tomei
Jeanneane Garofalo
Amanda Peet
Catherine Keener
Carol Kane
Kathy Griffin
David Letterman
Larry Miller
Bob Balaban
Stephen Tobolowsky
Clint Howard
Peter Krause
James Spader
Bryan Cranston
Pat Cooper
Wilfred Brimley
Fred Savage
Corbin Bernsen
Bob Odenkirk
John Larroquette
Jon Favreau
Jon Lovitz
Judge Reinholt
Jeremy Piven
Mario Joyner
Taylor Negron
Ben Stein
Courtney Cox pre-Friends
Kristin Davis pre-Sex and The City
Michael Chiklis pre-The Commish
Debra Messing and Megan Mullally pre-Will & Grace
Rob Schneider and Molly Shannon pre-SNL
Sarah Silverman pre-anything
Ana Gasteyer in her first television appearance
Denise Richards, age 21, playing a 15 year old with cleavage
the Farrelly brothers (as writers) before they’d ever done a movie
the Flying Karamazov Brothers in their first and only acting appearance
and Keith Hernandez and numerous other baseball players.
The Vagaries of Network Scheduling:
Season 1 — The pilot originally aired at 9:30 PM on Wednesday, July 5th, 1989, following Night Court.
The four episodes of the first “season” were run as a summer try-out in NBC’s prime slot following Cheers at 9:30 PM Thursdays, in May and June 1990.
Here you can watch Jerry first talking to Johnny Carson about the show the night before the series premiere (starting at 6:30 on the clip) —
Season 2 — ’90 – 91 — When they came back for 12 episodes as a mid-season replacement in January of ’91, they were first slotted in their original 9:30 Wednesday spot following Night Court (replacing the soon-to-be-cancelled Dear John starring Judd Hirsch) and up against time-slot winner Jake And The Fatman. But when NBC’s soap-opera satire Grand underperformed in the post-Cheers slot, they were moved back there for the next 7 episodes, before once again being bumped back to 9:30 Wednesday by the end of the season.
Season 3 — ’91 – ’92 — When they came back for their first full (22 episode) season in the fall of ’91, they were still in their original Wednesday slot following Night Court (now it its final season) but they still consistently lost in the ratings to Jake And The Fatman. At least, for the first time, they stayed in the same slot for the entire season.
Season 4 — ’92 – ’93 — In the fall of ’92 after Night Court finally ended its 8-year run in the spring, Seinfeld moved into their 9 PM Wednesday slot for their 4th season, followed by a new similarly New York 30-something show, Mad About You. But then half-way through that season (in Feb.) they were switched back to the prime 9:30 Thursday slot behind Cheers when Wings was failing to hold the audience. Finally having cracked the Top 30 rated shows in the country (finishing 25th overall for the year) Seinfeld became the network’s heir-apparent when their top-rated Boston bar show finally closed its doors to much hoopla that spring.
Season 5 — ’93 – ’94 — At the start of the fall ’93 season Seinfeld took over the prime 9 PM Thursday slot once Cheers vacated the premises, where they would finish as the 3rd overall show in the ratings for that season.
Season 6 — ’94 – ’95 — Thursdays, 9 PM (for the next 3½ seasons) — finishing the year as the #1 highest rated show on television.
Season 7 — ’95 – ’96 — Thursdays, 9 PM — the last season with Larry David. Finished as 2nd highest rated show of the year, behind only George Clooney’s E.R. (also on NBC).
You can watch the cast and crew talking about the impact of the Larry departure here —
Season 8 — ’96 – ’97 — Thursdays, 9 PM — again finished 2nd only to E.R.
Season 9 — ’97 – ’98 — Thursdays, 9 PM — until January ’98 when the network moved it up to 8:30 for its final five months. The show finished its last season #1 overall in television ratings. The only two other shows in television history that ended while in first place were I Love Lucy (in 1957) and The Andy Griffith Show (1968).
Most watched TV episodes of all time in the U.S.:
#1 — M*A*S*H finale (106 million viewers) #2 — Cheers finale (84 million) #3 — Seinfeld finale (76 million)
Bloopers and Outtakes
You’ve prolly seen every episode many times and there’s no chance you’ll ever see anything new, right?
Don’t be so sure about that!
Check these outtakes! They’re as funny as the show.
Once you get started with this, if you’re on YouTube you’ll see all the other seasons appear in succession at the top of the righthand column.
Also check this “Must See TV” — The Making of An Episode — if you wanna know how this masterpiece was painted. Spoiler alert: it’s all about the writing … 😉
And you can read all the scripts for every episode here.
=========================================
For a time-coded and annotated breakdown of Peter Jackson’s epic The Beatles: Get Back and one of the most-read stories here in Brianland go here.
For a great documentary about John Lennon’s first solo concert in Toronto in 1969, check out this clip-rich story about Revival ’69.
Just home from the 5-show birthday blow-out! Sheesh! Started with New Orleans’ Soul Rebels outdoors in a park with my New Orleans Soul Brother Ross Perlmutter. The funky brass-n-drums combo were joined for some songs by Toronto’s own frontline horndogs The Heavyweights, creating a new 11-piece band called The Soulweights, or maybe The Heavy Rebels. But whatever it was, it was a living incarnation of the collaborative jazz that’s makes New Orleans the birthplace of music as we know it.
The show’s part of this massive luminous 2-week Toronto arts festival called Luminato with thousands of artists from all over the world putting on theater, film, photography, readings, magic, dance, installations, interview talks, improv street theater, and of course — music!
And as part of the park concert scene, this Cuban collective called Los Carpinteros (art carpenters) created the illusion of a beach with deck chairs, beach umbrellas, cabanas, and even a lifeguard tower — all made out of cardboard! You could lounge on the beach chairs or climb up in the guard towers of this temporary installation … but all made from recyclable paper products!
Ross and I groove post-show on the picnic tables in the enormous outdoor bar with some frosty Canadian microbreweries for company as we’re sharing crazy tales of mother Nawlins. After I walk him to his car to end Part One of the day, I head back to the park and sure enough Ziggy Marley’s doing his soundcheck for the evening show! I smooth-talk a security guard that I’m an out-of-town promoter and wanna scout the site, and he lets me in! And there’s the son-of-a-Bob and his enormous band that just won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album for his “In Concert” live disk last year, and he’s rockin’ steady with the real roots including a couple joyous run-throughs of his Dad’s inspirational incantation “Lively Up Yourself.”
Then it was a mad dash up to Bloor Street to hit my favorite little bookstores, where I walked away with a cool Evergreen Review collection with Kerouac and all the boys in it, and the Jann Wenner oral biography of the mighty doctor, Hunter S. Then it was a synchronistic sojourn back to the site of my 50th b’day, The Cadillac Lounge on Queen Street West, to meet up with the next round of loogans, Damo, Greg, Peanut and the boys, who were all caught up in a New Year’s Eve-like party of screaming World Cup “football” fans from a half-a-dozen face-painted countries in this multi-cultural metropolis, guzzling beer using pitchers as glasses!
With a Herculean effort, I finally pour my bloods out of the sports stream, and we toss Damo’s bike in the back of the Blue Bomber, put Dr. John’s “Locked Down” on the jukebox, and bolted off to the next big park party scene — with a Led Zeppelin cover band! Of course just as we’re walking in they begin the ultra-trippy “Dazed and Confused” which they proceeded to play for about the next week. Then in keeping with the New Orleans theme, they noticed we were there and broke into “When The Levee Breaks” which I thought was quite nice of them.
From there it was a bolt over to the main course of the day’s feast — a Jerry Garcia Band in a funky old neighborhood pub, the Linsmore Tavern, that’s been hanging there on the same corner wonderfully unchanged since the 1930s. Fulla Deadheads — in a place you wanna go where everybody knows the game. And they’re already playin’, both band and audience, in that magic unspoken collaboration between listeners and musicians that we all know and live — playing in combo and rising with the tide of the vibes.
.
It was Mark Thackway’s band, and of course I ended up hanging with him and the Merl Saunders/Melvin Seals keyboard player, Wayne “Shakey” Dagenais. Although you’d never know it, it was actually these two veteran’s first public performance together — a new musical adventure for both them and the audience. And work it did!
But it was really this one Moment that brought it all together:
In this perfectly small bar, the quartet was perfectly replicating the small bar the Garcia Band was born and raised — the Keystone in Berzerkeley, California. With the band set up by the front windows and the tables and chairs cleared away all around the stage and corner door, the dancing music energy was at its vibrating peak at the very threshold where you stepped into the room.
And that’s right where this Magic Moment occurred numerous times . . .
As the musically motivated would arrive mid-set, when they pushed open the old inner smoke-windowed door they were already sporting a grin from ears to cheeks, and their face was beaming like an incoming stage light, as they gratefully, gracefully, dancefully floated into the improvised scene — not looking for a seat, not ordering a drink (till the set was over) — but falling seamlessly into the rhythm groove and group move, strangers dancing with strangers, just to shake their body, rub-a-dub dubbed, and the hugs were free.
And speaking of hugs, Magic Moment #2 happened right in the middle of this mayhem as some girl I’d been sorta dancin with n stuff overhears somebody wishing me Happy Birthday, and goes, “Oh — it’s your birthday!” Big smiles. “Well, what kind of a drink do you want, birthday boy?”
“Well, aw geez I don’t know …” cuz see, I don’t really drink the hard stuff anymore. But she’s quite persistent, she is.
“You gotta have something special. I’m buying. It’s your birthday …” And finally I come up with my old go-to — tequila & orange. And she squeals in delight and jumps me with a hug and kisses me on the cheek!
“I LOVE it!” she says, and heads to the bar, and all of a sudden I’m headin for trouble.
And, ya know … we start dancing side-by-side arm-in-arm, swayin’ in the groove and talking in the downtimes, and she’s very soft and bright-eyed, and it’s definitely The Old Flirty Bar Fling Routine. But to be perfectly honest I’m still in love with all the girls I’ve ever been in love with, and all my memories of intimacy are fairy-tale idyllic. And in this moment in this bar on this reflective day, I just didn’t want to mix some new bleary beery images with the tender magic I’ve lived. Not to mention mixing bodily fluids with a complete stranger. I believe it’s written somewhere — When A Girl Buys You Drinks On Your Birthday, You’re Supposed To Go Home With Her. But then … see … I’ve never been much of a rule follower.
.
And THEN right when this is not going down … The Giant Downer Happens — where my ever-present everything-in-it over-the-shoulder bag was stolen! What an insane birthday bring-me-down! I’m talkin to some other vivacious girl post-show and go to grab something out of it — and … it’s gone. I mean — gone gone. Nowhere. Definitely. A bunch of people start looking around for it, so I bolt out the door to see if maybe I’d see somebody leaving with it or find it ditched somewhere or something … but of course … not.
My camera. Cell phone. Notebook. Car keys!!! What?! I’m totally fucked. It’s totally gone. I’m shaking, white as a ghost. I tell my bloods Damo and Greg while the blood is draining from my face … lost and gut-punched, in a trembling trance. Then at some point I turn around blankly and hear some guy say, “Did you lose a bag?” … And he’s wearing it! The guy was so dazed and confused by the end of three sets of Jerry, he walked out and started heading home with my bag instead of his own!! Oh my Lord! I had it back! Cashin’ in a buncha karma coupons right there! Had to have a whole sit-down chill-down after THAT!
.
And THEN as a final evening musical encore — out on the sidewalk along the Danforth at 2-something in the morning, some brother strapped on an acoustic and began singing us all onto the road and into our night with “On The Road Again,” which I always thought harmonized so beautifully with my brother Jack’s most famous motif. 😉
And THEN he breaks into one of my handful of favorite songs ever written! “Not Fade Away” by the immortal Buddy Holly, which became a climactic singalong anthem in the Dead’s repertoire for their whole 30-year run. And not only is it a personal favorite, but it’s also the song where I appear in the movie of their Radio City shows, Dead Ahead! And there we all were, singing like buskers without a case on the street-corner of eternity.
And that’s the name of that tune.
“Love for real, not fade away.”
A smoky night in The Big Smoke.
(miraculous photo and tale exactly as happened)
Gonna ring a big ding
Calling out from Sing-Sing
Gonna have a spring fling
Kinda have an inkling
Everything is gonna sell
Comin’ out the dripping well
Middle East a burning hell
Clanging morning warning bell.
The toast is up, the jam is done
Twisted people think it’s fun
Blowin’ neighbors with a gun
Sneaky-creepy bang-bang run!
B for bombing and belabor
S for slitting with a saber,
I don’t know, but “Love thy neighbor”
Seems to me was from your labor.
Jumpin’ Jesus what went wrong?
Rodney King sez “get along”
Lennon leaves us with a song
Bloomberg does it with a bong!
The Dalai Lama makes the case,
And Jerry did it out of space,
Alicia’s singing soul’s new face
But best of all is this new place!
I’ll tell ya why, it’s cuz we’re here,
It’s live, it’s now, ya have a beer!
Top me up with living cheer!
I’m Sargent Pepper feeling gear!
We’re … water water everywhere,
Make us grow and make it better;
Water water everywhere
Take the dry and make ’em wetter
Spring is here, I smell the bloomin’
Many minds on Bowery zoomin’
Beatin’ back the glummy gloomin’
Trippin’ like you’re mushy schroomin’
Honest like you’re Harry Truman
Shooting wicked witches broomin’
Martin Luther King exhumin’
Everybody here’s a crewman,
Take your soul and keep on groomin’
Spike the spirit, keep on zoomin’
At the end of the darkness following Jerry Garcia’s death, the first instrument I heard played live a month or two later was a solo violin in an art gallery — and it was so beautiful it brought me to tears. After that breakthrough, when music seemed possible again, the first ensemble I went to hear was Johnny Clegg. He felt like the right and only music worthy of breaking the spell of silence — one of the few musicians whose impact transcended the medium — and it stole my face right off my head! That this similarly inspiring polyrhythmic mystic music was still being played broke down a wall and made me believe in the magic of the musical muse once again.
And here he was … comin’ around … in a circle.
The only floor ticket left five months ago was one of those wheelchair companion seats. As a former caregiver, I knew the routine, the seat next to the wheelchair spot, in this case towards the back of this gorgeous new 1,100 seat Royal Conservatory of Music hall, which feels even smaller with the two tightly stacked circular balconies. It’s got the best of everything, is acoustically immaculate and visually melodic, with plushy seats, high-class uniformed ushers, and royal everything.
When Johnny’s son Jesse was doing his half-hour opening set, during the last song I went down for a first-hand recon and the only empty seats were a nice 4-spot on the aisle in the 9th row! Ha! So of course that’s where I experience the show from — until the manic dancing up front for the climactic half-dozen songs with a bevy of joyously bouncing Canadian spirits.
The show was great, and as usual I was fully charged by the magic conjured by this all-South African troupe, and ready to groove-sail into the blissful Torontonian night. But when you exited the theatre into the lobby, they’d actually hired another South African band to play as people were leaving! It was so Bill Graham of them … simultaneously encouraging people to linger and maybe sponsor a World Vision child as Johnny’s promoting, and generally continue the experience, and perhaps have another cold beer or wine or whatever and dig on some music and bask in the aftershow glow with fellow concert goers before heading out into the cold late-snap April air.
And bliss it was, too — including a nifty outdoor balcony a person could slip out on for a smoke or a call. But fine groove though it was, after a wee buzz it was time for a wee pee before the drive home. And just for the trip of it, I decide to take the nearby elevator down instead of the faraway stairs. And as I’m waiting by the silver doors, these two bubbly well-to-do women come along, being ushered by a straight-street walkie-talkie Security Lady.
I’m trying to go down to the ground floor, but the elevator comes and it’s going up, which is where this trio was headed. And I’m, “Hmm … let’s see … you three are going to the third floor / upper balcony … after the show … why would that be?”
So, naturally, in an elevator ride of two floors, I become total besties with the happy duo who are just blubbering over some new Johnny CDs in their hands and still jammin in the joy of the just-birthed show. “Make friends with everybody,” I always say. Might as well.
At the third and top floor, Security Lady tells me there’s no bathrooms up here and I have to go back down. But … I know there’s bathrooms on this floor. I pre-scouted the hell outta this place. And the two friendlys walk out the elevator and go, “Oh, look, there’s one right here!” Uh-huh. So I slip out the doors behind them, turn left down the carpeted hallway, and Stop — in the name of … them having enough time to walk away. Turn, go back to the edge of the hallway/elevator alcove in time to see Security Lady leading the two birds diagonally across the balcony atrium into the only room up there, about a 20-foot lobby-cross away.
So … disappear — the old into-the-bathroom routine, give Security Chaperone time to leave. Back out … and it’s the third floor of this wild open-air atrium that goes all the way down to the band playing below … and the two outer walls … are made of glass! Ah-ha! So I stand back against the opposing alcove wall and with the pitch-black midnight mirrors can recon the empty lobby with the Shining bar along the wall and no one there except the lone bartender and one old security suit aimlessly pacing around, way past his bedtime by the looks of things.
As soon as I spy him turning and slumber lumbering off in the opposite direction I speed-walk on an urgent mission from my elevator cave to the cross-lobby sacred door alcove … which turned out to be two doors! Both wide open! And BOOM! The first person I see is … Johnny!
Keep goin’, no hesitation, you belong in this room. And the very next face I see is son Jesse! Who’s name is pronounced Jess, or at least that’s what Pops calls him. Anyway, he’s not surrounded like “the old man” is — as he calls Pops.
So I walk right up and tell him I liked his opening set, which was actually really good, hypnotic, up-tempo acoustic, just him and the old man’s guitarist who’s been with him since the Savuka days. Jess’s girlfriend’s from Toronto and he recorded his latest album here at David Botterill’s Rattlesnake Studios and we got talkin’ about Canadian immigration and visas and gigs … and that they’re doing this whole tour by bus, and I mention how they were soon playing both Boulder and Saskatoon — two usual places I’m familiar with. And he goes, “Yeah — and they’re back-to-back.”
“WHAT?!”
“Fourteen-hundred miles. We’re staying an extra night in Mile-high to rest up the driver.”
And then he starts telling me about how the Old Man just gave a lecture at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and how he riffed for an hour-and-a-half without notes, and I told Jess the truth: “Your dad’s as good a storyteller as he is a musician.” Cuz all during the show tonight he told the most wonderful and elaborate tales about South Africa and life and death that echoed with the rich anthropology that Johnny not only lived through and studied but also taught at the university in Johannesburg.
Then Jess tells me about how he and one of the crew slipped off afterwards to a Dartmouth keg party … in order to study first-hand the anthropology of American students in their natural habitat, you understand.
And the whole time he’s talking with that great lyrical British/South African accent that also weirdly comes through in their singing sometimes. Ya know how you don’t hear much of an accent in most British groups/singers’ recordings? Well, somehow in Johnny’s singing, his accent often comes through. It’s weird, and wonderful. Anywho, they both talk with that lovely lyrical sing-songy lilt.
And as Jess and I are hangin’, we’re right near the Old Man, who has a kinda unofficial receiving line going on. And all these different people including my two winking elevator besties are hanging around biding their time to go up and shake his hand. And it’s the same thing for all famous people who’ve affected others in a deep way — each person wants to share their story — how much the music meant to them, some pivotal moment where their life changed after hearing it — and he’s really gracious as he listens to each confession.
Then this funny thing happened where … when somebody came up to talk to Jess, I’d just spin over to Johnny beside me, and we somehow fell into this improvised routine where he started using me as his sidekick. He’d already seen me groovin with Jess, and … he’d often say these funny things, but the person he was meeting was so sorta nervous or whatever that they wouldn’t get he was making a joke. But I would. And he’d turn and twinkle wrinkle his eyes to me … and I ended up playing Ed McMahon to this Johnny all night. What a hoot!
Johnny Clegg, yours unruly, son Jesse Clegg
Note the eye line 😉
And another funny part was later when things were kinda winding down I blurted my own gushing moment! I told him how the climax of tonight’s show actually had me choked up seeing all these (I didn’t say it but, normally reserved) Torontonians up and dancing. It was crazy cuz it was what I call a “PBS audience,” all these lefty greybeards and beardettes in an already absurdly restrained audience city that does not get up and dance almost ever. But it was the women especially who were breakin’ ranks and excuse-me dashing from their mid-row seats out to the aisles and letting loose and we all had a helluva dance party out there, lemme tell ya! 🙂
It was so heartening and joyous I actually started choking up in the glowing love energy moment … having to force myself to not start bawling outright cuz I was, ya know, in a room full of people. But it was that beautiful a moment …
So I tell ol’ Johnny this emotion he evoked, and he’s like, “Yeah, uh-huh. Next!” After all my Ed McMahoning I was a little disappointed!
Nah — he didn’t really say that, he said something really nice. But the point is everybody, including me, thinks their precious anecdote is of vital importance … but people like Sri Clegg have heard so often stories of transformation from their art … it’s just part of the soundtrack of their lives. Imagine having people come up to you, multiple times a day, telling you how you changed their life. And it happening day after day, year after year. Psycho trips, man. Then add psychotropic drugs. By the bushel … … …
Wait, where were we? Oh yeah, I worked around pop-stars-of-the-month at MTV and it’s such a totally different trip when it’s artist-fans who’ve been sharing the same spiritual journey for decades. And Johnny’s been on this path since he first heard a guitar in the streets of Johannesburg in the 1960s. As a South African I met recently responded when I mentioned Johnny Clegg — “You just said the magic words.”
So, there we were, eye-to-eye — the two of us exactly the same height — check out the eye-line in the photo. It’s not often you talk with someone who’s on exactly the same level as you. 😉 Anyway, I ask him about his Asimbonanga performance when Mandela came out that was cited and quoted and shown all over the world after Madiba died a few months ago, and how I reviewed that very performance years ago and was now finally able to identify the heretofore unknown location of the gig straight from the horse’s source. He told me it was the closing night of some world health conference in Frankfurt, Germany, where Mandela had given the keynote speech, then stuck around for brother Johnny’s show.
Also … it hit me a couple days ago playin’ old discs n tapes that Savuka’s album cover had Johnny with a kid on his shoulders and I asked and sure enough that’s now 25-year-old Jesse.
I love this multi-cultural world-beat human-collage city. And so do a bunch of other people. And some of the locals are white South Africans tellin’ Johnny about how he and his music gave them strength and vision and direction of how to act with both purpose and dignity in their country’s racial revolution. And then there were these black-as-night South African Zulus who’d talk with him in their native tongue, and oh MAN! Is that one weird language! Holy surreal syllables, WhaKooBan!! Not exactly rooted in yer Latin!
And the son’s drinking white wine, and I’ve got a frosty local Steam Whistle, and Johnny’s got a straw in a tall glass of Coke, which somehow me and Jess start goofing with him on his line about “kinky kola” in “Digging For Some Words” and I ask him straight-up, “What the hell does that mean, anyway? Sexy Coke?” and he just smiled and nodded a sort of Yes but wasn’t about to elaborate, as is the poet’s prerogative, and at least not with his son standing right there.
And it was all magic and fun and then that part was over in the blink of a bus dash …
but just to flash back …
There was this stupendous two-hour concert …
The thing that’s different from his ’80s and ’90s shows is — he’s really evolved into a storyteller! It’s so enchanting and inviting and inclusive. I remember Sinatra did this. Randy Bachman does it. Neil Young’s been rambling a lot lately. He doesn’t do it every song, maybe every second or third he tells some wild elaborate wonderful story. It’s great. But unlike those other narrative troubadours, some of this guy’s tales involve band members and friends being killed in the warfare in South Africa. The whole show was kinda like a Director’s Commentary … explaining the motivations and background behind his shots/songs — like how the ground stomp was as important as the kick in the tribal dance he did. If you don’t know, this guy studied and performed with Zulu dance masters since childhood and was fluent in the spoken language by 16.
And it’s all about The Songs. It’s still that ripple from The Beatles’ splash — musicians writing Their Own songs. And Johnny now has a lifetime of them — anthemic authentic Zulu-Western songblends that grew out of the streets and tribal lands of a segregated country that he brought together musically. He’s got so many hits spanning so many decades he didn’t even have time to play them all in a two hour show.
And it’s the Unpredictable Arrangements … in an uncategorizable sound. It’s jazz, it’s pop, it’s world beat, juju, gospel … and all with a rock band foundation. It’s multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and multi-instrumental. It’s multiple forms of magic, is what it is.
And it’s all about The Players! This band! These harmonies! Great 3-part all night, including the soprano he’s been teamed with since the ’80s, Mandisa Dlanga. And the guitarist and musical director, Andy Innes, who’s been with him since the ’92 Savuka days and switches off on electric, acoustic and mandolin as the song suggests. And then there’s the all-purpose horn man on alto and soprano sax as well as the keyboard fills, Brendan Ross.
And it’s all about The Vibe. It’s some sort of crazy mix between a black Baptist Sunday revival and a folk singer protest rally. It’s Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and Bob Dylan, “With God On Our Side.” At the same time.
And in this spiritual preacher space, he climaxes the main part of the show with “Cruel Crazy Beautiful World” (written for son Jesse) with its joyous endless chanting refrain, “It’s your world, so live in it,” over and over as the audience starts LIVING a few degrees higher than they were before.
And in the truest gospel tradition, he ends the final encore, “Dela,” with its benediction — “I’ll pray for you,” and makes a point of saying it one-by-one to every person in the room.
And … that’s sorta what Johnny Clegg is like.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Set list (except for a couple songs I didn’t know):
“Next stop, Shakespeare’s Globe,” says the driver downstairs on the red double-decker bus winding its way through the narrow South Bank streets of London.
I went early so I could do the official tour of the theater, and of course the guide was extremely well-versed, among other things explaining how back in the day the audience would drop their pence or two in the admission box, and then they’d go lock up the box in an office. That is, the “box office.”
And of course he and I start jammin’ and it causes our little tour to run way overtime.
Then I ask Mr. Cool-Guide if I can go back into the private area and look at their wall with all the founding donors’ signatures cuz I know Carolyn Cassady who I’m staying with is one of ‘em. And he lets me!
But when we get to this huge bronze wall of little signatures at the top of the stairs, he’s thinking, “Why did I let this guy back here? He’s never gonna find one signature …” and right away starts mumbling out loud, “Um, people aren’t really supposed to be back here, and uh … ” Boom! — “THERE IT IS!!”
And as I’m taking a picture of it he’s sayin – twice – “I can’t believe you found it that fast!” 🙂
After this score, I do the whole two-floor exhibit on Shakey Willie and how this theatre’s exact replica reconstruction took 50 years to happen, and I spend the whole afternoon totally living it and transported back to the horse & peasant days.
I’d made a bunch of really awesome daytime plans for a boat ride on the Thames and exploring Potters Field by Tower Bridge for the Olympic screen-scene, but once I was back in ancient England it was, “I’m not leavin’ Shakespeareville!”
At some point I slip through the back gates and end up backstage sitting at a courtyard picnic table with the props guys, and one of ‘em says, “You wanna beer?” and hands me a frosty Corona from the crew cooler and proceeds to tell me all these wild stories of how they do the “O.P.” shows, Original Practices, and how everything’s done exactly like it was in 1600 and all the costumes are dyed with animal fluids, and washed by hand, and the neck ruffs are made with pins-only — about 200 of them! — and how they toured America and played a prison and the guards counted every pin coming in, and the crew had to manually count and account for every pin coming out!
Next thing I know I’m in my freakin front-row-center lower balcony seat overlooking the groundlings on the floor — best seat in the house — and the show’s to die for!
And one of my questions going in was — are they gonna do the opening Induction? It’s this whole weird set-up to the play that’s often not performed — this elaborate premise that there’s some debate about whether it actually connects to the play or not.
But before it even starts there’s this drunk guy on the floor who gets into a fight or something with the staff! And it starts to escalate, and to get away from it the guy actually runs up on the stage! And security’s called, but before they can get there the guy starts taking a wiz against one the pillars! And then he starts stumbling around and literally pisses on the audience! And this poor guy in the crowd runs out screaming for a towel! And the drunk guy passes out or worse on the stage and the freakin’ paramedics get called! And the stage manager in her headset runs up there and is telling everybody what to do, and the crew and actors all peak out from the wings, and eventually she says the show has to be cancelled.
And I’m like, “Dude! This is two times in a row!! Can’t you guys put on a show in this town?!” This just happened when I went to Long Day’s Journey Into Night last week! They had some electrical fire backstage and the stage manager came out and cancelled the show half-way through the first act!
But eventually they wake up the drunk guy and decide to put on a play for him. Just as Shakey Willie designed it.
And thus it was we were introduced to the supreme majesty of THE theatrical master.
And of course the whole play — “The Taming Of The Shrew” — is insanely great, and they work with the groundlings on the floor during the entire show. At least half the stage entrances and exits are done walking down into the standing audience — pushing through them, starting arguments with them, hugging them, seeking their guidance — extending the play to forcefully include the audience whether they like it or not. No getting around this one. Yer in it.
And Then! All of Shakey’s plays back in the day ended with a jig! I never knew that. But all the actors would come out and have a party on stage and dance and improvise songs and interact with the audience and confirm to them this was all a play and a party and they’d end with a dance, the healthiest of human activities, London Olympics be damned. So this whole theatre-wide dance party happens, with everybody on stage and in the audience up and dancing and clapping and hooting and whooping.
And when the show’s finally over … I don’t leave. It’s just the way I don’t roll. I let everybody else make like sardines while I stay in my seat soakin’ it in, the last guy to leave the balcony.
And even after that, I linger in the second floor lobby of the modern building we exit into, and Boom! there’s the absolutely gorgeous delicate blond young-Michelle-Pfeiffer-looking actress, Sarah MacRae, who of course I had an instant crush on, walking right towards me! I jump at it and thank her for the great show and she’s all smiles and lovely and graceful and grateful. And as I can’t take my eyes off her I see her slip through some unmarked door. Ah-ha!
The power of the pre-scout, baby! I knew that that Open Sesame actually led to an adjacent Shakespeare-themed bar. So I follow her in, and right away meet one of my favorite actors from the play — in a supporting role, but he just Crushed it all night — Tom Godwin. In fact, he was also one of the musicians and at one point riffed a really funny “Johnny B. Goode” that got a theatre-wide laugh.
So we start talking and really getting into it and after a bit he pulls a cig out of a pack and I’m like, “Oh, can you smoke in here?”
And he’s, “No, I’m gonna go out there,” nodding to the outdoor patio. And I’m, “Oh cool, I’ll get a pint and join you,” and he’s like, “Yeah, great, do that.”
So I go out … and the guy’s actually waiting for me! And it’s this whole private patio garden bar overlooking The Globe and the mighty Thames and the whole cast is there including Michelle Pfeiffer looking like a white rose in bloom, and Tom & I start jammin’ fast n furious on Shakey Willie and theater and how to do it. And right away we fall in with one of the leads, “Lucentio,” and we’re all jamming the rehearsal process and turning the words into actions and creating the direction and Shakespeare vs. O’Neill and the overt sexual entendres in this 400 year old play and how slapstick isn’t a bad thing, and I’m having such a good time with these two I go ahead and have them sign my program. Gotta be the first time since I was a kid that I asked for an autograph, but we were having such a grand old groove of it on this riverside balcony with couches and cold ones, and I had one of these cool new £4 programs they sell insteada giving you a free one, but they’re so much nicer, and how many times do Shakespearean actors get asked for autographs? So the program gets passed around and about a dozen of them sign cool chit in it.
And I’m telling them the “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” story about the stage manager coming out to cancel the show, and how that’s now happened to me twice in a row in London! It kills.
And then one of the actors, he’s 26, in his first Shakespeare play, and is a total freakin’ Prankster, starts doin’ magic tricks right in front of us in the latenight trip of it all. In the middle of a conversation he suddenly starts spitting pins out of his mouth as though they kept unexpectedly showing up there.
And then he gets prodded by his troupe for more, so he tears off a long strip from a paper napkin on the table, hands it to a brother actor, and says, “Is that just a piece of tissue paper?”
“Yeah.”
Hands him a lighter. “Prove it — light it on fire.” So he does. And as it’s burning the guy reaches into the middle of the flame with his finger and thumb and pulls out … a crisp 10-pound note!
And then some New York actress falls into the scene, and the volume kicks up, but there’s also some bar manager nosin’ around startin’ to bust us for being in a pub after 11 PM in this Puritan country, and finally people start to cut out — and fully half the actors leave by bicycle!
For the first time all night I look at my watch and — “Holy oh-oh!” — it’s 20 minutes till the last train outta London!!
So I book it down the back stairs to the Thames — and on this pedestrian-only walkway … sits a freakin cab! What?! No way!! Boom! And he even knows a place between here and Waterloo Station to grab some late night beers-to-go, hits it on the way, and I’m once again on the last train outta Dodge with a pocketful of prosody.
Czechs:
Ondrej Pavelec — .899 Sv% — 3.02GAA (Winnipeg)
Slovakia:
Jaroslav Halak — .912 SV% — 2.29GAA (St. Louis)
For some reason Canada lucked out in the groupings — playing our three seed-determining round-robin games against, in order, Norway, Austria and Finland.
Whereas the USA has Russia & Slovakia in their group; and Sweden and the Czechs are in the same group.
We also have the preferred time slot for all the round-robin games — the last game of the day, 9PM local, or Noon in the Eastern time zone in North America.
Whereas the USA is playing all their games at 4:30PM local time, or 7:30AM on the East Coast.
With the passing of The Giant I thought of all great music he inspired …
and interestingly enough I’d reviewed a lot of it over the years so thought I’d put some of the best together here …
And then that captured moment was so priceless and impactful that the performer, Johnny Clegg, used it in his 2013 concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. And as The Great Spirit provides, one audience member up front was capturing it on his camera and shared it with the the world … http://www.rockpeaks.com/video/c/Clegg-Johnny/Royal-Albert-Hall-2013/Asimbonanga
Then there was The Specials’ “Free NelsonMandela” — the very first song in Western culture that brought attention to Mandela’s plight in early 1984.
Here’s the earliest live version of the song captured on film, on the offbeat Channel 4 show Tube, just before the song’s writer Jimmy Dammers would leave the band. And don’t miss the surprise appearance by Elvis Costello. 😉 http://www.rockpeaks.com/video/s/Specials/Tube-1983/Free-Nelson-Mandela
To these ears, the most powerfully rockin of all the Mandela songs is “(I Ain’t Gonna Play) Sun City,” written by Little Steven and recorded by his all-star assemblage Artists United Against Apartheid in 1985, following in the draft “We Are The World” earlier that year.
Here he is whipping the best live version ever captured on film — in the small-venue Ritz in NYC with brother Bruce showing up to join Little Steven’s Disciples of Soul … and whoever the hell that teeth-rattling bass player is — I want him in my band! http://www.rockpeaks.com/video/l/Little-Steven/Ritz-1987/Sun-City
Here’s the long-form video of “Sun City” that Little Steven’s collective of masters made. Some of the legends I noticed — Miles, Herbie, Dylan, Ringo, Springsteen, Bono, Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Wolf, Jimmy Cliff, The Temptations, Clarence Clemons, George Clinton, Afrika Bambaataa, Run-DMC, Darlene Love, Nona Hendrix, Ruben Blades, Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil … and … my old front yard, Washington Square Park, was the setting of the climactic choir scenes! 😉 http://www.rockpeaks.com/video/l/Little-Steven/Washington-Square-Park-1985/Sun-City
And in 1988 when Jimmy Dammers, the guy from The Specials who wrote “Free Nelson Mandela,” organized the massive all-star “Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute” at Wembley Stadium, he was able to summon the likes of Little Steven, Peter Gabriel, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, The Eurythmics, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Joe Cocker, Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Simple Minds, UB40, Youssou N’Dour, Jackson Browne, Chrissie Hynde, Tracy Chapman, Paul Carrack and loads of others.
I just came across this in the files. Glad I did. Kinda cool.
They’re not really traditional 5–7–5 haiku — they’re what Kerouac called Western Haiku — “simple 3-line poems that make a little picture” — written while I was living with and inspired by Carolyn. There certainly was something about that woman that inspired. She had so many arts flowing through her at every given moment — painting, writing, theater — it couldn’t help but transfer to those around her.
This outcropping, sketched over the summer of 2012, is a portrait of her, using a tiny haiku brush.
Everything comes directly from something she said or I saw.
Haiku For Carolyn
Portrait painter, married Adonis
loved a movie star
could still draw their faces from memory
Houseful of books
skyscraper stacks
grow on every surface
Still watches movies
like the set and costume designer
she always was
Still cooks every meal
meat, potatoes and veggie
like her bio-chemist father taught her
Touch-typing emails
looking at giant Mac screen
words flow with ease
In love with history
so much a part of it
and not just this lifetime
Designed her own garden
and put in a waterfall
knowing I was coming
WACed a war
mothered a family
batted away suitors by the battalion
Hung with heavies
but keeps it light
as fans gush their hearts
Still twinkles by day
and beams at night
reading in every morning
Turquoise and purple
color her home
herself and her life
She enjoyed this life
as much
as she enjoyed all her others
