Treasure Island report

Man, what a crazy world. It's been a great wild ride since last Nothin' Sed Somethin'.

Let me try to explain if I can...in the following words & musick, just what transpired.

It's been over four years since I've been able to escape the Wage Slavery. Oh, I've taken a day here, a day there. Never long enough for the shackle marks to clear. Well, I just finished up a fortnight of freedom & I'm questioning my ability to return to the grind, both job & blog.

In the past four years every time there was a show in San Francisco, Oakland, or at Gilman, I'd be working, try to get off early, drive down, do show, have a great time (granted), & then drive back & back to work. If the show was on that lucky Saturn day, then I'd get to stay over & have a bit of Sunny day time. It's just that there is so much to see, so much to do, so many friends to try to look up or track down, so many exquisite places to eat (vegetarian) that with limited time the magick never really gets a chance to unfold to its fullest.

I'd been looking forward to going to the Treasure Island Music Festival for quite a while. The Black Dahlia (my better half) wasn't going so Lao (my better third) & I were making the trek. I used to be a stay-at-home dad, working from the Caca Casa & being a house husband while Lao was going through the diapers to diaphragm years. Since about the time she slipped the noose of the Public School prison we haven't really had a lot of time to do things mano y mano, so I was looking forward to this tremendously. I manipulated my schedule & got two weeks. I took a couple days to reset my internal clock from wake-at-the-break-of-dawn mode to partying late & sleeping 'til noon joy & I was ready. Lao's twenty-six, she's always ready.

We headed to S.F. Wednesday. We snagged a cheap flop in the Mission (the bathroom was only two doors from our room [smoking - hard to find these days]) & dropped off our belongings. Then we hit the streets. First we headed to Herbivore on Valencia to get some pure fuel (vegan & heavenly). Then we found a vacant shop with a nice secluded stoop not far down the block for an after-meal smoke to set the mood. At least it seemed secluded, but to any knowledgeable nose, i.e. a pot-head schnoz, there is no secluding the KGB. Here comes this old hippie couple to share our space, our boo, our mind set.

& then the S.F. magick changed the color of light & the sound of life around us. I knew these people & from the astonished looks that sprang to their faces, they knew me. A veil of years swirled in the ocean-salted breeze & dropped from our lives.

"TC. Jolene. Is it really you?".

"Nathan. Nathan. (simultaneously, I don't know how to write it that way)".

" Jolene. TC. It is really you?!".

"Nathan. Nathan. (ditto)".

We just stared for several eternities until time once more began to move. The roach burned my finger & Lao poked me for introductions. We all name swapped & then we three oldsters started reminiscing.

It had been (you've got to believe this) 34 1/2 years since we'd seen each other. We had been at a benefit put on by STARSEED, as a tribute to Dr. Timothy Leary - then imprisoned after being forced out of Switzerland through pressure from the United States & kidnapped by CIA agents who arranged to have him extradited from Afghanistan. The show took place at UC Berkeley's acoustically perfect Zellerbach Auditorium & starred those heroes of the cosmos, Hawkwind & Man. Joanna Leary spoke. According to Joanna, both she & Dr Leary considered Hawkwind to be the most highly evolved band on the planet. TC, Jolene, & I happened to agree. Hawkwind had done two benefits for Leary in England & still more in the States. Joanne Leary described the bands as, "two highly evolved British bands on the neurological scale of time,". 1,000 people attended. Hawkwind had the most intense stage set, light show, visual & sound show that we had ever experienced. They did the Warrior on the Edge of Time set. I give it to you now to set the stage. Light one up &
Enjoy.

Hawkwind - Warrior on the Edge of Time, United Artists UAG29766, 1975.
NØ

To be continued...