In the early seventies, taking a trip to Mexico seemed as natural as a drive to the grocery store. Whether taken by myself, with wife Harolyn or fellow merchant, Rick Nihlen of Tallahassee, the visits always encompassed both business and pleasure, as we drove through the vast Mexican countryside visiting tiny hamlets on market days, surrounding ourselves with merry mariachis on warm Guadalajara nights or driving through the mountains to the Pacific, where friendly Puerto Vallarta awaited.
Market days in Mexican towns came once a week, and on those occasions craftsmen and mini-merchants from the surrounding area lugged their considerable goods to town, opened up a blanket and became retailers, joining the more or less permanent local businessmen who had actual storefronts or street stalls in which to stack their disparate paraphernalia. Many of these towns featured specific products, like Taxco, built over hundreds of silver mines, Leon, footwear capital of the world, Puebla, the place to go for your onyx needs and Oaxaca, with its own unique pottery and a surfeit of blouse assemblers.
At the crack of dawn, the brooms come out in Mexico. The brooms and the water buckets, hoses for the more affluent merchants, as they prepare for the day, sweeping the devil out of the area surrounding their little stalls or entryways, washing them down and sweeping some more. These Mexicans could sweep the paint off a Packard. I asked a little fellow in Tlaquepaque about the extraordinary efforts. He smiled, and then a little introspective laugh.
“Yes, senor,” he told me in his best English. “It is true we work hard with this. You look around (sweeping his arm). There is no beauty.” To say the least. The surrounding area was a virtual slum, noxious, unkempt, poverty-ridden.
“I have no power to change these things. I have only power to make my own place beautiful. My very small part of the world. So I work hard. I do everything I know to do. I create my own beauty.” And bravo! to that. What the world could use a few more of is motivated Mexicans with brooms.
Young people (like us) used to grow up with brave but foolish notions of saving the world. Unfortunately, we’re more sophisticated now, so we realize an individual save is impossible. So what we need, and badly, is a whole mess of little saves, delivered by people we’ll call Points Of Light. And no, George H. W. Bush does not OWN the phrase, he just borrowed it and I’m taking it back because a more apt one is hard to imagine. Points Of Light. It’s perfect. You can be one if you try.
The Internet And Beyond
In the old days, we might brighten up the neighborhood with a tulip garden, holiday candles in the windows, a pat on the back for a needy recipient, these days we have The Internet….The Ultimate Weapon. We can reach far beyond our immediate surroundings….reach out into the vast beyond, to Shanghai, to the Gobi Desert, to Equatorial Guinea, even, if it’s still there (and would anybody tell us if it’s not?). And then there’s the mighty Son of Internet, the behemoth called Facebook. Now, Facebook has its detractors, plenty of them, solid citizens concerned that the wife or daughter has given herself over to the pleasures of the durn thing and will never return. We all know people who have gone beyond the pale. But as our pal Marty Jourard contends, “The hell with people who dis Facebook; it’s by far the best tool ever for finding lost friends and keeping people together.” And Marty has been known to be sometimes right. But Facebook provides an even better raison d’etre, that being the palette it offers its users to create one’s own singular universe. Everybody wants to be an artist, right? So here’s your chance. Whatever clutter surrounds you, however deep the dustpile, now you have a spanking-new Broom with which to begin excavation. Use it wisely and construct your own private Idaho, or Shangri-La, if you prefer. There are lonely people out there, hanging by a thread, numberless reclamation projects which can still be saved. There are fights to be fought, battles that can be won against staggering odds. There is hidden beauty which can be unearthed and displayed. There are moving stories to reveal, epic feats to celebrate and there is laughter, don’t forget laughter. You can promptly don your Point Of Light cape (no telephone booth required) and deliver the appropriate messages to the needy. Oh, and remember the music. Virtually all the music ever created is available somewhere on the Internet, we have but to find it. The other day, we even re-found these guys:
The Incredible String Band
In the annals of music, there are a few artists whose sound is so distinct it is instantly recognizable from the first note. Sinatra. The Everly Brothers. The Beach Boys. Simon & Garfunkel. The Beatles. Add to the list a lesser-known but equally unique sound, the incomparable music of The Incredible String Band, a musical Point Of Light. The ISB, basically the duo of Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, was not for everybody. Its sound was comprised of haunting Celtic folk melodies augmented by a variety of Middle Eastern and Asian instruments. But it is the stuff of great imagination, of wonder and beauty. Heron was a member of several road bands in England in the early ‘60s, while Williamson and Clive Palmer played as a bluegrass and Scottish folk duo. Heron was asked to join as rhythm guitarist and the trio took the name The Incredible String Band from Clive’s all-night establishment, cleverly called Clive’s Incredible Folk Club in Glasgow, where the group became the house band. A talent scout named Joe Boyd had seen Williamson and Palmer perform at Edinburgh’s Crown Bar in 1965 and when he rose to head Elektra Records’ London office in 1966, he signed the new group for an album, the title of which was simply The Incredible String Band.
Following the album’s release, Williamson spent several months studying music in Morocco and Palmer left to travel to Afghanistan. For the group’s second album, The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion, exotic touches such as the Middle Eastern oud, Indian sitars and tambouras began to permeate the group’s sound. The band’s lyrics also became more whimsical and eventually included a priceless ditty called Painting Box, which included such lines as these:
Somewhere in my mind there is a Paint Box;
I have every color there, it’s true.
But every time I look into my painting box
I seem to pick the colors….of you.
Critics were thrilled with the group, even moreso after the release of their most commercially viable album, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, after which the group enjoyed a brief flirtation with stardom. For the albums Wee Tam and the Big Huge, the band was augmented by Williamson’s and Heron’s girlfriends, Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson. This expanded lineup performed at Woodstock in 1969, subjected to some bad luck when their Friday night slot following Joan Baez brought torrents of rain. They cancelled and were replaced by Melanie, who was received extremely well and then wrote her big hit Candles In The Rain about the experience. The ISB got a lukewarm reception next afternoon, performing between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Canned Head, not your ideal folkie spot. They continued on but were never again as popular, gradually faded and finally disbanded in October, 1974.
The music of The Incredible String Band could never be described as catchy, you wouldn’t be whistling an ISB song as you walked down the street. But it damn sure was original, lyrically gorgeous with beautiful imagery and always unpredictable. Patience was required in listening, although all the patience in the world was not going to lasso a majority of people. For those who loved the work, however, the music was unforgettable. We played it all the time at the Subterranean Circus. When we bought a few acres in the country, Circus employee Danny Levine took to calling it The Old Golden Land, after an Incredible lyric and when we sat around the water pipe at night we often analyzed and considered the songs, this being well before the inspiration hit us that nobody ever has any idea what musicians are really thinking. We enjoyed one of the ISB verses so much we even recruited a sweet little acidhead artist named Ishmael to paint it on the front of the building….our wishes for those who passed through our portals:
May the long time Sun shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the Pure Light within you
Guide you all the way on.
Points Of Light. You can’t beat ‘em for home or office.
Where Deb Peterson Lives. And No Wonder.
Yachats To Be Kidding. Not Really….
There were always a few people who hung around the Subterranean Circus longer than the normal, psychologically sound human beings. People like the Jourard brothers, mysteriously drawn to the place by some unknown magnetism and unwilling to leave. I’m not sure why we put up with them but it might be due to their cleverness in bringing pastries. Another loiterer, although more charming, was a winsome lass named Deb Peterson, who loved the Circus and especially loved The Incredible String Band, so much so that in later life she travelled to England, introduced herself to Robin Williamson and became one of the musician’s inner circle, invited across the pond annually for whatever hijinks the old guy still performs. Deb took the group’s music—songs immersed in beauty, love and kindness—very seriously, deciding that adaptation to the ISB philosophy would be a meritorious way to conduct her life. She continues to be a font of love, encouragement and friendship to all on her sunny Facebook page, dispatching images of beauty and positivity—without being cloying—on a daily basis. A Point Of Light. She is a source of joy to all she reaches, which is a ton of people. She is brightening up her little corner of the world. Her signature line is “All you need is love,” which might seem a little corny if you didn’t know Deb Peterson.
Therefore, without further ado, The Flying Pie herewith announces the knighting of Deb Peterson as the Third Perhaps Annual Internet Co-Person Of The Year, a first around these parts, all the other honorees being male. As everyone knows by now, this entitles the recipient and the pal of her choice to a free feast at the best local restaurant we could find….and, let me tell you, that wasn’t easy in Deb’s neck of the woods. Because we are on close terms with Google Analytics, we first had the notion that Deb Peterson lived in Waldport, Oregon. Then, it looked like the correct address might be Yachats. After which, she mailed us a couple sheets of Janis Joplin stamps (the lead illustration for last week’s column), postmarked Tidewater, for crying out loud. A cursory inspection of the paucity of restaurants in the area convinced us it had better be Yachats, but where-oh-where in Yachats to go? Silly old Tripadvisor tried to tell us the best restaurant in town was The Village Bean Coffee Shop but we weren’t going for that. All due respect to The Village Bean, which might be the best little coffee shop in the civilized world, but come on, guys, we’re talking dinner here. We settled on the Ona Restaurant (Is Ona the owner? No, we think it’s Michelle) in lovely Yachats, so you march right on down there, Deb, and show them your Points Of Light card. They promise to take good care of you. And you were right, you don’t even need money, all you need is….well, you know.
A Harry Edwards Contribution
We’re Still Wild About Harry
What is left to say about Harry Edwards, bon vivant, man-about-Austin, chronicler of an era, music historian, bringer of The Truth to millions and now a certified Point Of Light? We’re not certain Harry will accept his POL title despite his great affinity for all things Bush but we’re pretty sure he won’t turn down his Third Perhaps Annual Internet Co-Person Of The Year Award because his lovely wife, Diane, likes to dine in style.
We first met Harry on the Austin Ghetto Line (the correct name for which we can never actually remember) where he was a regular participant in the daily skirmishing among grouchy old socialists, kindly granny-ladies and pollyannas like me who think there is at least a ten percent chance mankind will be saved from itself. Harry knew when to insert humor into the conversation, which is often in this case. I should have met him earlier, since we were both tenants in Wally Stopher’s flophouse at about the same time in 1962….maybe he was the guy on mattress number five over by the window.
At any rate, when I finally fled for my life from the Ghetto Line, I had to keep track of Harry somehow, so I resorted to his Facebook page, a well-managed operation full of appropriate political outrage, musical reminders, Austin shenanigans, funny business and important historical happenings such as a recent conversation in England involving supercartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Robert Crumb, who is not as shy these days as he used to be. Harry was also the lead bell-ringer in Austin for the recent Flying Pie Quadrilogy, 1962, advising the customers whenever Elvis entered the building and delivering scads of viewers to the column, and he did it without being asked.
There are countless people with Facebook pages out there, most of them sharing recipes, posting photos of their children or the dog, expressing naïve outrage at some social minutiae (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but there are only a small number in which each posting seems a carefully considered move….almost as if Harry Edwards is publishing his own newspaper, filtering and triaging the contents, seeking to advise his fellow man there are important things out there to consider, people worthy of remembrance, a crying need for social justice and nobody is permitted to simply look the other way.
Okay, then Harry—this time it’s the La V French restaurant, where the lovely and talented Jamie is waiting, gift card in hand, but not until tomorrow. Bon appetit, which, I think, means “hearty eatin’” in American.
It’s the New Year, everybody, time for reassessment and retrenchment. The forces which assail us are mighty but they are not intimidating Deb Peterson and Harry Edwards and they needn’t run us aground either. In the Pursuit of Happiness, we can be passive or aggressive but the former works better. And when New Year’s Resolution time arrives, take a look around and see what you can do for someone. It needn’t be much, a small kindness, a gesture. It will make you feel better, perhaps spur you to further efforts. Before you know it, you’ll be on your way. You could even become a Point Of Light.
That’s all, folks….
