MAIL

MAIL

Dear Creem:

I have been trying to write the Lighthouse article for two weeks now, but everytime I write it they plan something new that just has to be included, like the three weeks that they played with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in June, or the appearance before the queen in July.

I had one written until they got booked for the Boston Globe Jazz festival and I couldn’t miss that one, could I?

After Boston, I wrote another and almost got it to the mail box before they made me waste the stamp by playing free at Homesburg State Prison which is one of the major political prisons in the United States.

Sol rewrote it and I said all those things and how Ralph Cole used to be in the Thyme and how skip played with the paupers and about the strings and brass and classical/jazz/rock and Atlantic City Pop Festival and R.C.A. Records spending a fortune and I read it and tore it up.

Then I wrote Lighthouse plays for peace and I wrote John Lennon and Rabbi Feinberg and thirteen pieces and smiling and love and peace and read it and tore it up.

And tonight I’m tired. Me and M and M’s brother and Bruce spent all day hauling the equipment around this hospital and setting it up and getting lots of stares from people with bandages, under, over, in and around, and sometimes instead of uniforms, and short hair and little piggy lifers, and naval freaks with only four more days to go to freedom. And of course, the guy in charge of telling the hospital patients about the concert, didn’t start doing it until 4 this afternoon and to-day is pay day so everyone who can get off base has done so.

I’m sitting in the projection room watching the group. The audience just saw a military approved movie that stank of saltpeter and other antiaphrodisiacs, and the cat who showed the movie just lit a joint and sat back.

And suddenly it seems that the whole audience has sat back and maybe that’s Lighthouse. Maybe Lighthouse is music to sit back to. Maybe that’s why standing ovations don’t really count. Maybe it’s just these 80 or 90 people in traction and splints and bandages and smiling and clapping and maybe that’s what counts.

I’m sitting in the audience now cause I can see better. These people are strange. They just got back from getting their legs hacked off and shot at and they seem to know a lot and it’s funny. Perhaps this is what makes it worthwhile when Lighthouse is playing for peace and the guy next to me lost both arms playing for war and he just asked me to clap extra hard for him.

I feel trapped and recognition for the dues each of them have paid and maybe when Lighthouse is finished they should applaud the audience.

And maybe, the way I feel now is how it should feel all the time and maybe that’s what I wanted to tell you about Lighthouse.

Hope to see you soon.

Tony Reay Pratt Auditorium St. Albans Naval Hospital Queens, New York

Dear Creem:

Would you be interested in publishing an article or series of articles on the home workshop manufacture of revolvers?

This is not so far-fetched as it may seem at first because I have done it myself and have a recipe that produces and advanced single action revolver with superior strength, of functioning and ease of manufacture. The recipe in its essentials as per the stamp: COMBINATION LOADINGPAWL

SLOT: EXTERNAL

INDEPENDENT

CO-COCKING CYLINDER LATCH

Its excellence lies in the fact that no timing mechanism is necessaryless metal is cut away-better control results and there are additional advantages of simplicityadaptiveness-and other advantages will become apparent to the user, the maker and the upkeep and repair.

Remember Prohibition?

PROHIBITION RIDES AGAIN THIS TIME IT’S GUNS STAY TUNED FOR THE GRAND FINALE

So, I hope to hear from you.

Sincerely, John L. Coffin (Your letter has been referred to our purchasing dept, in Ypsilanti. -Ed.)

Dear Creem:

Please can you music people do something with Blood, Sweat and Tears; like, you could almost forgive them for trying to do to 1969 rock what payola did to 1959 rock, but now they gone in to backing up a new Laurel Canyon find. And he is absolutely painful-God’s truth. Anyone who can dare to massacre the beautiful music James Taylor dreams up just gotta be banned by the FCC or someone. Why don’t you just give BS&T some jive award and farm them out to some Banana Republic.

Yeah, how about the Annual

Creem Let-It-Bleed Award?

Peace,

Evans Johnson

Ann Arbor

Dear Creem:

Living in America today is no joy. An erica is suffering from a spectrum of a lments, ranging trom racial hate to the mind manipulation of the mass media. Perhaps the worst cancer of all is the growing degeneration of leadership in this country.

Man’s conquest of outer space is viewed as progress, while as yet, the inner space of mind and soul remain largely ignored. America is a spiritual wasteland. A splinter of hope is porvided by the growing number of communes that are emerging across the nation. These communes are testimony to a new answer to an America that has been dulled by bland leadership and by the apathetic masses.

The rebirth of America’s communes is worthy of careful strdy.

I am presently writing a book on this subject. Part of my research entails visiting communes and speaking with its members. If you know of any communes, or any individuals who have lived or visited a commune, or anybody who can facilitate this research, the information would be most valuable to me. I would deeply appreciate any help you could give me on this project.

Sincerely yours, Robert Carr 36235 W. 87th Ct.

Miami, Fla.

(Alternatives! Foundation publishes a list of intentional community in the U.S. Any of our readers involved in living the lifestyle should reply.-Ed.) Dear Creem,

I don’t really mind you printing my photographs and not sending me bread, but giving someone else credit for my work besides is a fucking drag.

Tom Wright Kent, Ohio

(Tom..the photo of John and Sunny Sinclair (Vol. 2 No. 8, pg. 8) was mistakenly credited to Magdelene Sinclair.)

MUSICIANS’ FREE ADS

Singer, blues harmonica player looking for Blues-Rock group. I’ve got a gig now but it’s going no place. Call Budd, Det. 313-777-8003.

Lead guitarists wanted (Must have own equipment) to work with John Drake and Rick Lober, ex-Amboy Dukes. Bizarros, pornos and twistos need not call. No hangupsdraftfree, etc. 313-KE3-4898 Detroit.