I'm reading, exercising and resting. Limited technology to accompany us up north. The computer is still not working right and the geek squad is rescheduled to be back here again next week. Till then FUCK TECHNOLOGY.
In the winter of 1971 I was just a boy of 17, living up on top of a mountain on the outskirts of Whitethorn CA. northwest Mendicino County, I lived in a commune with my friends Paul, Hansil, and Susan. We lived with this dude named Snake and his six, that's right, six old ladies and Mamma, Snake's partner in crime. Brigham Young didn't have anything on Snake. Mamma was around to keep the girls in line. Snake rotated them through the week, a different woman for each day, with him taking Sunday off to rest. That was probably when he serviced Momma. I had no knowledge of their monthly cycles, and what happened when the curse arrived, if they were all in sync or what. Snake never did a lick of work. The girls waited on the enlightened one hand and foot.
We were as poor as church mice. We started using the flooring to heat the place. It was a cold and wet winter. Snake had the girls convinced that he was Jesus, and he told our friend Hansil that the reason he was glowing was that he was filled with the spirit of Snake's love. Me and my buddy Paul, who had been a heroine addict in Vietnam for 18 months, told Hansil it was hepatitis.
I didn't believe a word of Snake's bullshit, not even when I was tripping. One day the owner of the cabin came up and asked us to get the fuck off his property or he'd sick the sheriff on us. Snake had everyone believing it was his land. It turned out that we were squatting.
There was a war between the hippies and the old guard going on up there at that time. As you know the hippies won that one. The old timers thought all the long hairs were girlie men, as our ex-gov would say. They never figured they were hardened veterans of the longest war to date in the history of the country.
Me, Susan and Paul would hitch into Whitethorn, drink cheap wine, eat good LSD, and just hang out in town with the other local hippies. There was this woman Kathy who was one of the hippie warriors. She'd come into town with an M-16, bullets across her chest. She had a saber sword, and boots made of Spanish leather. Well, you know what I mean.
Whitethorn had been really cool. There was a free clinic started and a bread program, but that area was going through a change. The hippies said, "We ain't cutting down trees, we're growing weed, and that's final."
My father died about two months after me, Paul and Susan left the cabin and moved back to Haight Ashbury. I as living with Paul, and working in a restaurant on Filmore Street when the old man passed away. I don't know what happened to any of those folks. Paul was my main man. He never fired a gun the whole time he was in Nam. He got off the plane, started shooting heroine, and that's what he did for 18 months.
My whole first trip out west was more wild than anything I could have ever conjured up. In fact, 17 was like a Tom Wolfe novel. I had to live on the streets. I was the hobo, a rolling stone. There were some tough times. hard lessons to learn, and some sad looses, but it was a magical year none the less.
I went back to Connecticut because Rocco passed, but I only stayed a year. My dad's brother Tony died shortly after his death. I didn't want to go home after he died. I mean, he was gone, what could I do? I fell in love that summer in Connecticut, and got my heart broke. That's when I knew I was done with Connecticut for good.
I'll keep a journal of my eating habits and exercise, and do some photo shooting. Maybe I can get a blog up Sunday. Till then.
That's it.
Bye Bye.
Peace,
Make Food/Not War
What I ate Today;
Breakfast;
black tea 1 tsp agave
Lunch;
Banana, nuts, raisins, dried fruit, oj
Dinner;
Cheeseburger on focaccia herb bread w/A-1 steak sauce, water melon, popcorn (the last of the burger meat)
Exercise; 5.5 miles walking
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