Jacobi

                        photo by some Wendy's employee in Santa Fe

We tried to figure it out and it came to something close to twenty years since we've seen each other. It's like we never left. Bill Jacobi and I go pretty far back, 45 years or so, and he continues to be a treat. As an artist he's always been an inspiration, he was the first harmonica player to convince me it's an instrument and as a pal he's always been close, even in absentia. 

We've had some random communications by email in the last few years and before Deb and I made our excursion to Santa Fe he gave me his new email and phone number. Of course I forgot to take it with us and tried to get his info from mutual friends who only had his old info. Then out of the blue, as I'm talking to people at his old job, comes an email from him "Hey Dave... my number is XXX". Right on cue.

We met up at an art opening in his town. Bill is just a joy to be around and I was pleased to introduce him to Deb and my friends. I was meeting other friends there too and feared being pulled in too many directions, but Bill fell naturally into the evening and ultimately we had a couple more opportunities to catch up. After the opening we went over to Lisa Law's house, checked out her studio and got "on the bus" that had seen seriously cool action in the 60s. The four of us had dinner that night with Clinton MacKenzie and Kate Johnson at a Mexican restaurant filled with Lisa's photographs. 

The next few days Bill and I had some one-on-one time over a table at Wendy's. Bill has always been wonderfully obsessive, a true force of nature. Whatever he gets into he goes in deep and takes as much away as he can before evolving to the next area of his interest. He looks good and recently found new accommodations that allow his Zen side to develop. 

By my recollection it was sometime back in the 80s Bill that was one of the first computer game aficionados on the scene. He was excited about a game that replicated golf. It used a little stick like a golf club with a light on the end and as you swung it over a pad on the floor it would determine shaft speed, angle and all the stuff required for simulating a golf game.  Of course he mastered it and in his enthusiasm brought the whole rigmarole over to the house and hooked it up to my TV so we could play. Although interesting technology, I've never gone for the computer game and urged him to join me at the little pitch and putt golf course at the end of the street. Grudgingly he left the electronic club on the couch and once teed up pulls a 7 iron out of my bag and promptly puts the ball on the green. Never hit a real ball before, just smacks it up there ready for a two-putt par. He seemed uninterested, still talking about the video game. The second hole, same thing, pin-high from the tee. I told him how great that was, that people practice for years to have a swing like his and he just scoffed. "There's a (virtual) hole at Pebble Beach that's WAY harder that this and I can ace it, this sucks" and then do a modest chuckle.

At Wendy's Bill tells me about the things that currently capture his imagination and they're amazing. He's so enthusiastic and filled with wonder and laughter. He finds avenues and trains of thought that are outside the box. He continues to do what so many of us set out to do so many years ago. We were all looking for answers, looking anywhere for clues and keys to our existence. For some folks traditional answers are really no answers at all. 

Most people find a conventional life or a career is a means to satisfaction. But Bill is still on patrol and I love to hear about his adventures. He has the same humble self-effacing manner about him as always. He can be very serious and the consummate comedian, and we've all learned that some of the heaviest things go down easier with a bit of humor.

Wavy Gravy

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. 

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.