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When I was 18 and about to graduate from high school, we always had a big May Day outing on the football
field with three May poles stuck in the ground and long ribbons hanging from the tops of the May poles.
Grade school kids, hanging onto the ends of the ribbons, danced around one of the May poles, junior high
kids around another, and high schoolers around the third. The band played, the rest of the school kids sitting
in the bleachers sang along to the May Day song: Ring around the May Pole, dance among the worms in the
grass, watch the two dogs stuck together in the end zone, give the finger to the principal and missus Fartmiller,
the old maid Latin teacher. Well, you probably know the rest of the song so I won't bother with it any more,
point is, those happy innocent May pole dancing days got done in by the damned Russkies who copped May
Day all for theyselves with their macho military parades that were as long as Moscow city limits and went from
dawn to dusk, cowing us so much we put our May poles in the basement and slunk away, not too sad, for don't
forget, we told one another, The First of May, First of May, outdoor screwing starts today.

The labor movement picked May Day as their day of solidarity and celebration.


In French, "m'aider", a shortened version of "venez m'aider" (meaning "come and help me"), got picked up
by the English speaking military as a cry for help: Mayday, Mayday, I'm in a ton of trouble here.

QUESTIONS FROM GIOVANNI:

How did folk musicians affect the political atmosphere during the 1960s?

The folk musicians were a powerful force in the political atmosphere, being a voice
for peace love and happiness on all fronts and they had a large following of folks w
ho also believed in the values they were singing and playing about.

What kind of impression do you think that folk musicians of the 1960s have on music today?

It's still alive and well with thousands of young musicians carrying on the tradition.
There are so many music forms today that folk gets sometime overlooked in the radio and
media world but it is alive and thourishing in live concerts.

What kind of impression do you think that folk musicians of the 1960s have on modern culture today?

It's so sunk into the culture no one really thinks of it but those who love folk and follow the
music live lives that are in contrast to the materialistic consumer buy buy buy use use use, throw away society.

    How did folk music in the 1960s affect your daily life?

    There all the time, mostly records, the Weavers, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Odetta, Joan Baez.                
Whistling and singing along, the attitudes and beliefs part of everyday experiences.

EMAIL FROM GHINA GREG:

I've had a theory.
In the coming centuries, the ORIGINAL Star Trek will be done like Shakespeare plays are now.
Each episode will be played carefully..thoughtfully.. by actors who have seen ..many ..other actors, do it previously.
Like,, Laurence Olivier, or something.
It's THAT well-done.

Whattya think ?

ha ha, looking into my crystal ball I see Star Trek and Gilligan's Island fighting for supremacy.

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2017

SUCCESS

The starter on my old but reliable riding lawn mower went out last fall and hasn't come
back until a few days ago when I ordered a new one. First, I had to take off the engine
cover and the flywheel cover and the cylinder cover (and a good thing I did, a mouse
had a nest in there and if left there, it would have overheated the engine and ruined it,
and how do I know that? I already ruined the previous engine that way) and remove other
covers and take out the battery before I could get at the starter; a bitch by the way
to get out.

Yesterday, I put the starter back in (easier than taking it out) and started to reassemble
all the covers when it startedraining so I had to cover everything up. Today the sun
shines and I'll be back at it again, anxious to see if the old beast will still run, for Spring
has sprung, and the grass has riz, and this is where the good times iz.

Hey I'm watching an old Star Trek episode right now, called, "Wink of an Eye". It's the one
where these aliens are all super-fast around the Enterprise crew... and then Captain Kirk gets
DOSED.. and HE speeds up the the (beautiful female) alien's speed factor...

But GREAT! The spot where Kirk starts GETTING OFF... the alien DROPPED his coffee...
and suddenly Jim Kirk starts TRIPPING... everyone around him is moving S-L-O-W-e-R-R-R....
and you can see him, like, just about waving his HAND in front of his face to see if it's, like, REAL, man!

-- China Greg

When my brother, John, lying on the ground at Wikkieup, with his hand over his eyes, was asked by
the farmer who towed the bus out of the wet sand, "What do you do in real life?" John replied without
moving his hand, "This is about as real as it gets."

-- kb

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Yes, still having a wood fire in the woodstove, weather been cold and rainy, and I burned
the last piece of oak so nothing to do but go out and cut some more. This past winter's
ice storm brought down lots of trees so there is oak galore if you want to climb the hill
and bring it back to the truck.

Performed with the band, Terrapin Flyer, at the WOW Hall in Eugene OR
Saturday night, February 11. Did a Cassady reading backed by the band,
Melvin Seals rocking on the organ.




           To hear and see the performance on youtube, go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C9WMIpJi1U&sns=em

WOOD RUN

Oak, cut off of a big branch that crashed after a storm in the woods.



Had to carry the rounds a ways to get them in the truck. Lots of rests.



Home to split the rounds with the woodsplitter, then truck and wheelbarrow
to the woodshed for stacking.

Been usy working on my book in the mornings and, thanks to clear cold days,
have been out cutting and spliting and stacking firewood, building up the stacks
in the woodshed that have been depleted over the worst (I hope) of the winter
weather.

TERRY HEINTZ BOOK

A week after I had the plate removed from my arm I went in to have the stitches
taken out and the bandages gone, back to bare flesh. Also had some damage done
to my hand taken care of. All thanks to the top orthopedic surgeon, Doctor Dave Bear.

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Here's Patrick, after the dishes are cleared off of the table and gifts are being
exchanged and Look: a new T shirt, he was thrilled.

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SKUNK ATTACK

There was a family trooping around the yard this summer, mama papa and four little
ones, then they wandered away. About a month ago we smelled a skunk under the house.
I borrowed a have a heart trap from a neighbor and caught the skunk and released it
way up in the woods, across a lake and river so it wouldn't come back to our house. What
hey, another skunk under the house, then two more for a total of four and the fourth one
skunked me when I was releasing him from the trap. Took a couple of days to clean that
mess up and we though we were done but no, there's another one under there and tonight
I must set the trap again.

     SNOW ON MT ZION ACROSS THE STREET

 

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At the 50th anniversary of the Acid Test Graduation in Eugene, Oregon, I read
a piece I wrote about the real Acid Test Graduation in San Francisco on
Halloween in 1966 when Neal Cassady handed out diplomas and Kesey
spoke, point being time to move beyond.

"Welcome to the world of magic," he said in a deep voice. "Where the mysterious
rules and the fog is peeled back and your eyes behold wonders for new possibilities
are revealed.

"We opened a crack in the wall and let in more light. Now it's up to you to widen
that crack. Wake them up. And once awake, keep them awake, use your skills as
performer, wizard, magician, raconteur, teacher. Get up out of the chair, on your
feet, get to work. Help other people out. Raise your consciousness. Respect all others.
Be kind. Humor works all the time. When the housewife was asked why she
volunteered to work in the high school cafeteria, she replied, 'Youth must be served.'"

         "I get weary of people who use pessimism to avoid being responsible
for all the problems in our culture. A man who says 'we're on the road to
disaster' is seldom trying to wrench the wheel away from the driver. I prefer
the troublemaker."

 

--Ken Kesey

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Don Buchla, modular synthesizer pioneer, dies aged 79
Geeta Dayal

The musician and inventor created the Buchla 200 and the Buchla Music Easel, which were used by Silver Apples
and Grammy winner Suzanne Ciani
 
Don Buchla. Photograph: Supplied

Friday 16 September 2016 20.57 EDT Last modified on Saturday 17 September 2016 19.01 EDT

Don Buchla, the groundbreaking synthesizer inventor, has died age 79.
He was considered a true iconoclast with an uncompromising vision of what synthesizers could be. His impact
on electronic music was vast; Buchla independently invented the first modern synthesizer at the same time
as Robert Moog, in 1963.
Although Moog is often credited with having invented the first modular synthesizer, Moog even admitted
during his lifetime that Buchla was the first to have a full concept of how to put all the modules together to
add up to an instrument. Buchla tended to avoid the term ‘synthesizer,’ preferring to use terms such as
‘electronic instrument.’
“He invented a whole new paradigm for how you interface with electronics – much more human, and a
whole new thing,” says Buchla’s close friend Morton Subotnick.
Subotnick commissioned the first Buchla synthesizer in 1963 and had been friends and collaborators with
Buchla ever since. “I put an ad in the paper and he showed up,” Subotnick says. “We wanted to make a
new machine.”
The synthesizer, the Buchla Series 100, was finished in 1963. A string of pioneering new electronic
instruments followed the Buchla 100 in the following decades; Buchla was actively designing and
inventing up until his death.
“He was a genius and an adventurer – an adventurer in the real sense of the word,” says his friend,
musician Bob Ostertag. “Almost everything he made was unprecedented.”
Buchla had a major impact on legions of electronic musicians. “Don Buchla gave me my electronic wings,”
says the musician Suzanne Ciani, who first met Buchla in Berkeley in the late 1960s. “He was a consummate
inventor who had genius, unswerving dedication and playfulness in his designs. ‘The Source of Uncertainty’
and the ‘Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator’ modules are two of my favorites. He never wore matching
socks, but oddly, as an enthusiastic tennis opponent, always wore pristine tennis whites. I will treasure the
days I worked for him, and hope to carry on the musical vision that he bestowed upon us.”
The musician Laurie Spiegel, another longtime friend of Buchla’s, says her life was changed forever after
first encountering a Buchla 100 system in Subotnick’s old studio in New York’s West Village in the late 1960s.
“I never figured out what exactly it is about Don’s electronic musical instruments that makes them so musical
in feel,” says Spiegel. “I’ve used quite a few kinds of synths and systems. His were special, magical, musically
magnetic somehow.”
Buchla played a key role in the 1960s California counterculture. He was involved with the Trips Festival in
San Francisco in 1966, in which thousands of hits of LSD were given away for free to the audience. Buchla
also helped build the Grateful Dead’s massive, legendary sound system, along with his good friend, the
infamous chemist and audio engineer Owsley Stanley. “He was very close with Owsley,” says Ostertag.
“Owsley and Don were the two hippie geniuses.” Buchla, he says, would sometimes sit underneath the s
tage at Grateful Dead shows in the 1960s and secretly play along with his synthesizer.
The word ‘visionary’ doesn’t really do justice. He had no fear of anything.
Through his life, Buchla was a true contrarian who never followed trends. He wanted to maximize creative
freedom and possibilities for musicians, and he designed his unique instruments to reflect that. “It doesn’t
bother me that my own ideas in particular have not been widely perceived,” Buchla said in a 1982 interview
in Keyboard magazine. “It does bother me that the powers that be have such short-sighted views of what
musical instrument design and development could be all about.”
Other inventors of electronic instruments looked to Buchla as a friend and inspiration. “Don was very
much a rebel, defying convention at every turn,” says the synthesizer inventor Roger Linn. “It’s so nice to
see the innovative ideas he developed 50 years ago being embraced by so many young electronic musicians.”
Subotnick called him a “wizard of interfaces”. Buchla’s philosophy was that a well-designed instrument
would never become obsolete – to this day, his synthesizers are revered. The tendency, as Buchla argued
in Keyboard magazine, was that when engineers designed instruments, “they design from the inside out.
They design the circuits, and then they put knobs on them.”
“But if a designer expects to design legitimate instruments, he has to design them from the outside in,”
Buchla continued. “He has to build the outside of the instrument first. This is what the musician is going
to encounter. You cannot become obsolete if you design a legitimate instrument from the outside in.”
Buchla also made his own music and performed live, often with unexpected results. “One piece that is an
insight into Don’s more silly personality was a piece where he had us wear giant sunglasses with musical
staves printed on them, while we waited for popcorn on a hot plate to start popping, signaling when we
should play our slide whistles or glissandos on our instruments,” recalls Joel Davel, who worked with
Buchla for over 20 years.
His son, Ezra Buchla, a musician based in Los Angeles, remembered his father as “the most singular person”.
“The word ‘visionary’ doesn’t really do justice,” says Buchla. “He had no fear of anything – leaky boats,
lightning storms, failure. He couldn’t have done what he did without a basic joy in his work and an innate
intellectual generosity that swept people along.”

We got to know and hang out with Don Buchla in 1965 and 1966. We joined up with him at the Trips Festival,
interfacing our figure eight feedback loop lashup with his electronic music maker. Here's the mixer and effects
maker he built for us to use on the bus.

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                   Been concentrating on writing book and totally ignoring the website, bad me.

              TO LOOK AT ALL THE STUFF ABOUT THE BOOK, WHO SHOT THE WATER BUFFALO,
                                                                 CLICK ON:

                                                                 WSTWB

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