Deb and I were driving around Berkeley. We went by People's Park and stopped to take a picture. Back when it was the real thing Rhoads and I had our picture taken there and thus we started to reminisce on the great heritage of the Berkeley scene. While heading to a favorite bookstore there was a
theater marquee that read Wavy Gravy Ram Dass Acid Test. I assumed that I 'd go but I was in no psychological shape to take acid. At the bookstore there was a
poster for Ram Dass that indicated it was a one man play titled Acid
Test. I walked down to the theater
to find it was abandoned, so what about the Wavy Gravy part? Deb did a little
digging and found that yes, Wavy was going to be performing in town in person
and although we were heading out of the area, we could be back in a few days to
see it. Buying the tickets was no simple operation, but her diligence got us
two reserved seats in the tiny Marsh Theater on Addison.
I always like to get places early
and Deb likes to get there just in the nick of time, but since we had
no ticket confirmation we arrived with plenty of time to spare. As we walked up
to the theater an old fellow with a dark coat and white hair struggled to get
out of the passenger seat of a black car. Although I didn’t see his face, I
knew the hobbling figure was the old boy we were there to see. We walked
together, “You’re not a football freak are you?” he asked. “No, just a freak.”
We made small talk, I opened the lobby door for him and he went on into the
theater. We talked to the guy at the desk and found we were the only ones who
bought reserved seats and were therefore front row center with our chairs
accordingly marked.
All the essential duties were
now done so there was half an hour to relax. Deb went to a place next door called Cancun
and got some soup. There had been some people milling around that I thought I
recognized as writers so I went to the theater bar hoping to identify them. As I walked in I saw Wavy
pulling up to the bar and order a drink “I got no cash on me, can I get a
drink?” "Your money is no good here"
said the girl behind the bar, “Well, I don’t have any!” he repeated. So I sat next to
him and said hi. I ordered a Diet Coke in a dirty glass. The bartender
questioned such an order. “It’s the only way you can make a drink like that
sound macho.” We were the only two people there. I told Wavy we had some mutual friends from his camp and we had a
few words about that. He looked at me and asked again if I was a football
freak. It turns out that he is and his show starts at precisely the same time
as the 49er Packer game and he’d be missing it. We established that I would watch the score on the iPhone and give him reports during the performance. Then we
started talking.
Wavy is a rope that weaves through a lot of my interests. I’m a long time devotee of Lenny Bruce and although a fan of Kerouac and Kesey, its Neal Cassady that links the beats to the hippies, a central protagonist of both generations, and the one who captured my imagination. Sitting at the bar, talking to this complete stranger, we talked as if returning from a long conversation that had been interrupted.
We talked at length about Ram
Dass and his life since the stroke. Wavy suggested I Skype him, he’d enjoy
that. He said Ram Dass’ language skills were greatly improved, although he
still doesn’t speak in stream of consciousness like Lenny Bruce. Lenny and Wavy were
tight; Bruce even managed him for a time. And the day before Lenny died he gave
a yarmulke to Wavy and suggested he sew it into his Tom Mix cowboy hat. The inside of the yarmulke read
"souvenir of Weinstein Mortuary". The next
day Lenny was dead and his body was prepared at Weinstein Mortuary funeral home; then Wavy made little Twilight Zone sounds.
He looked at his watch, seven minutes until show time. I excused myself, told him I’d leave him with his thoughts and we bid farewell. I went into the theater. There were maybe six or seven rows of ten folding seats. I went to the two empty ones front row center where our drinks were poised nicely under the seats and parked my ass. The stage was filled with little trinkets and toys, tools of the clown’s trade.
He looked at his watch, seven minutes until show time. I excused myself, told him I’d leave him with his thoughts and we bid farewell. I went into the theater. There were maybe six or seven rows of ten folding seats. I went to the two empty ones front row center where our drinks were poised nicely under the seats and parked my ass. The stage was filled with little trinkets and toys, tools of the clown’s trade.
While I was checking these out Deb was coming back from the soup and ran into Wavy in the lobby. They stood and talked for another five minutes. It may be coincidence, but when I talked to him he talked about things that I'm interested in and when he talked to Deborah he spoke about her second favorite topic, gourmet food! I couldn't help but think he's just very dialed in, even to strangers. Then they entered the theater together, she taking her seat, him lumbering up to the stage. He took his place on a high stool, uncomfortable looking from the start. He was beat up from his many back surgeries and beat up by cops and beat up by being part of the beat generation. Like a lot of small storefront theaters, the stage was only a low platform and he locked eyes on us, six feet away and in rapt amazement (and his only link to the football game).
There weren’t a lot of people there and the entire hour and a half that he spoke he looked at Deb and I, and although the stories were different, both of us felt like it was evening with Scott Gladden. Wavy is pretty new to my catalog and it was Gladden who suggested I watch the Wavy documentary titled Saint Misbehavin’, and that got me hooked (you should see it too); whatta dude. From his early days as a beat poet to today… its not that he had his finger on the pulse of positive cultural change, but that his finger gave pulse to that change. I wont try to describe his role in the world here, but it’s absolutely amazing.
Another, less amazing thing, happens every once in a while. I've had seemingly random trips turn out to have a theme. It happened with Kesey and now, looking back, it seemed to happen with Wavy Gravy. Our original outing was to Mendicino and outlying areas for a general getaway. We enjoyed looking at the vivid tye-dyed clothes in shop windows around Fort Bragg. The weird signs in Berkeley leading us to Wavy didn't let on that his Camp Winnarainbow is located just outside Mendicino. It seems that whatever we were doing, wherever we were going, it was all connected.
Early in his talk he took off his dark coat that represented the Beat generation to expose the tie-dyed clothes beneath, “I will always be and will die a hippy.” During his talk he described Neal Cassady as a best friend and told many tales to support this, including the time they kidnapped Tiny Tim from the clutches of the FBI. There were a lot of Tiny Tim stories that shed new light on this weird character. At the end of the show everyone sang the Wavy Gravy anthem together and everyone shed a tear.
We sat for a moment debating on what to do next and just left while Wavy put all his toys in a bag. After all, leaving was just another interruption to a long conversation.
