Sitar

It was Topanga Canyon, 1966 I was sitting on a stool in the black enameled kitchen. The girls were making California enchiladas with hamburger.Frank Zappa's Suzy Creamcheese was blasting over the loudspeakers. One of the men lighted a joint, took a drag, and passed it along. I sat on my stool, and when the joint got to me, I just passed it to Marilyn, who was sitting on a kitchen chair in her negligee, chatting about her day in the city, working. That's not my bag, man. Tom opened a cabinet door, took out a large bottle of maraschino cherries, twisted the cap, and handed it to me with a flourish. Annoyed, I took one. I hate maraschino cherries. At the time, I didn't get the point, what with the black kitchen and Suzy Creamcheese blasting. The chatter was about "art." Tom was incredibly good looking and actually a very talented painter, but he talked shit almost all the time. He had an IQ of 140. He was a genius. Gary was designing suede pantsuits in wonderful colors. I really wanted one, but I had absolutely no money, and Jose never offered. Gary thought they might be taken by the Broadway, or Macy's, or Buffums. except he couldn't leave the canyon. It was not his bag to negotiate with the square world, man. Jack was training animals for the movies somewhere nearby. All the women looked like Michele Phillips, except Esther, who was heavy with long, wavy, dark hair and married to Jack. Time had just published a long piece on the hippie movement. Hippies were the new bohemians with long hair, very romantic clothes, long flowing skirts, embroidered jeans, and homemade jewelry. Haight Ashbury was still just a neighborhood in San Francisco. The action was in Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles. California dreamin'.
The house was supposed to be a commune; everybody would work together for the common good. No freeway lanes here, no square pegs, freedom for all. The problem was that all the men were artists, and the women all worked in Santa Monica down twisting Topanga Canyon Blvd. The men sat around during the day doing drugs and drawling slowly about art. The dishes and mess waited where they were until the girls got home from work. When the girls arrived,they were tired from their long days in the sqare world, wanted to put on their negligees, smoke dope, and relax. The house was expensive, andthe girls didn't make much, so there was never any food, and the men got grouchy and blamed each other for the mess and the empty kitchen, like six year olds. It was Jack's turn to clean up. Well I'm not doing the dishes from your turn yesterday, Tom would drawl through a haze of whatever pills he had taken. The lovely canyon trees would lean against the windows of the house, and a red tail hawk circled and circled in the sky unnoticed. Outside the house, it was very green and quiet. The sun shone gold on the streams with ferns leaning into the cool water, and the California sun glinted on the ocean ten miles away. You could see it from the canyon on a clear day. Topanga canyon has more clear days than most places in Los Angeles county.
Jose had brought a hundred pound bag of potatoes and the humburger. Thus we would have the California enchiladas made from a can of tomato sauce, god knows what spices and legal and illegal herbs. Tortillas are cheap. The women moved around the black kitchen in their sleepwear. The men leaned against the walls, smoking dope and drawling about art man.
After dinner we retired to the huge, windowed living room. It was lined with cots like a Roman salon, and and people reclined or sat against the cushioned walls while Gary played the sitar. The only light was from candles here and there and the moon through the windows. We were each solitary, listening to the sitar music and, I guess, meditating. The music was horrendously bad. Pliiiiiiiiiiiiing, Pliiiiiiiiing, Pliiiiiiiiiing. On and on. One wondered how the Indian people got through life with such music. Gary. of course, was so loaded he could not stand up, the lighted tip of a joint was going from hand to hand, the air scented with marijuana, grass and eucalyptus, incense. Sober though I knew him to be, Jose would take an occasional drag. He said it had no effect. I was stone, cold, straight, sober. The music may have sounded good if you were loaded. I didn't get a lot of movies, either. I heard a rustling behind me and looked around. Esther was on top, her naked flesh moving rhymically in the cool light of the moon and candles. I didn't see who the man was. I quickly turned back around. Pliiiiiiiiiiing, plong, pliiiiiiiing. Jose and I would make love in the little room he paid for here when the evening wound down, the people had passed out, and the sitar concert was over. Until last week,I could never hear the word sitar without a shudder. Pliiing, pliiiiiing, plong, pliiiing. Tom wrote poetry, too. They all did, but the girls. He wrote one about me in the nude. He never saw me nude, or even in a negligee, but he got it exactly right. He had a wonderful eye.

Two Thanksgivings ago, we brought Tom from South or North Carolina. He lives in his parents' house near Ashville, where Thomas Wolfe lived. He hates it. He had an accident, and he's nearly blind, but he draws obsessively with pastels, and he's still good. He's addicted to uppers, and his brain is gone, but he can stll do magic with pastels. We gave him a box of pastels and a cheap easel. He nearly wept.


We used to live near the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena, and it always amazes me how far we have to drive now from Hollywood. My daughter was invited by her cousin to see her perform with the cousin's husband in an Indian music concert there last weekend. We didn't know what kind of Indian it was, but we went. The freeway was miraculously fast. The museum was having an exhibit of Indian from India art, so it would be that kind of music. My daughter looked around and said maybe she was underdressed in her shorts and cute top. I am always underdressed, and I'm rarely alone, so I looked around and pointed out a couple of ladies in jeans and shorts. We went into the little auditoriun and looked at the programs, sitar music-the guy had taught at Cal Arts, studied in India under the great master who I thought must be dead by now. Just his name gave me shudders, and of course, I have blocked it out. Well. maybe I would learn something. The program described the two men in worshipful detail and hardly mentioned my daughter's cousin. She came out in a sari and sat cross legged holding the neck of a stringed instrument. The men came out, bowed, touched their forheads, bowed to each other, and sat cross legged. The man talked about how great the Indian man was and made no mention of his wife who sat silently behind, smiling occasionally. The man tuned his sitar for a long time. Then he played a meditative solo. Boring, but not bad. I need more exposure to appreciate it, I guess. The drummer played solo. Okay! Stunning. The earth moved. Then the monsoon rains came, tearing out of the sky, over the fields, poured down the streeets. It beat and beat and beat. The world would end with this rain, nothing like our gentle California storms. This was the voice of god beating against the world, bringing life and death at the same time.