Looney Toons
There is a certain rage prerequisite to considering the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Alan Wilson. Of all the people we’ve lost (death-wise, if not jail-wise) these two deaths make the least sense. One can cope with the basically organic death of John Coltrane, as disheartening as his loss was, and despite the shock of Brian Jones’ death at least there was some question there as to whether or not the cause was drugs.
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Looney Toons
Dave Marsh
There is a certain rage prerequisite to considering the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Alan Wilson. Of all the people we’ve lost (death-wise, if not jail-wise) these two deaths make the least sense. One can cope with the basically organic death of John Coltrane, as disheartening as his loss was, and despite the shock of Brian Jones’ death at least there was some question there as to whether or not the cause was drugs. But with these two, the cause was certainly drugs, of one sort or another, the only definite decision being that they were downers.
So how do we deal with that and how do we deal with those kinds of drugs, death drugs? All the things that were opened to us by acid and grass and mescaline are now being deranged and deluded in a deluge of bogus the, smack, phony cocaine (also smack, often as not), and reds and wine. Not that alcohol is involved with being a scourge except that it is definitely more dangerous than grass and acid, which we all know up in front anyway. But we all know that smack and the rest are killer chemicals, literally deadly, and yet there are numerous members of supposedly hip socity who lean back and insist “Well, if it was right there, I’d take it.” As William Burroughs once put it, “Wouldn’t you?”
The movie of Naked Lunch is by now lonp-over-due. Maybe we should make that book required reading for everyone on the planet. We should, positively and absolutely. I know Burroughs was instrumental in opening my head to the rot we’re infested with in this country and on this planet and I know he’s done the same for a number of other people: Jeff Shero of Rat John Sinclair, Bob Rudnick, Ken Kelley, David Sinclair, lots and lots of others.
Listen. Timothy Leary is now a revolutionary toting a gun. Listen. John Sinclair, once the Pharoah of the Hippies (so-called), is now a revolutionary, toting a gun. Listen. We are involved with forces that we are not yet sure precisely how to channel. And they can be used to control you. Why did the pop festival in Oregon draw thousands of kids away from the American Legion demonstration that was supposed to take place?
There’s a fine tension in this land, a thin line that (once you’ve stepped beyond it) prevents you from ever going back. I tried to lay that out last time.
The problem is that we have to pick and choose, pick and choose, pick and choose, who to listen to, who to talk to. who to expend our energy for and who to give up on. But we can’t let the Death Forces win or else it’s the Nova Mob and the ovens for all of us baby. And the Death Forces are sometimes, all too frequently in fact, clothed in the armor of hip, a stealthy and sure protection from those who are well-intentioned but ill-informed Communications.
Jimi Hendrix open my head to sc much, man, so much. Just that first record, the best record of 1967, and it tore my head up, it really, really did. Dig that first side . . . “Purple Haze” opens it up with the incredible guitar line and then he’s singing “purple haze all in my brain/lately things don’t seem the same/I feel funny but I don’t know why/‘Souse me, while I kiss the sky.” And it’s all a part of it, all of it relates to him dying. All of it. “Is it tommorrow or just the end of time?” Oh, yeah. Maybe he was a dead man from the beginning but then who killed him? Who killed Davey Moore? Cock Robin?.
“Manic Depression”: “I know what I want but I just don’t know/honey/how to go about gettin’ it”. Far out. I remember the MC5 doing this song on New Year’s Eve that year and Fred Smith totally destroyed his amp and they broke off in the middle of the set and came back. A killer jam. Yeah, killer. “I think I’ll go tear myself up and come on down/Really ain’t no use of me hangin’ around.”
And it ends with “1 Don’t Live Today” . . . “maybe tomorrow but I just can’t say” . . . “aw shucks, there ain’t no life nowhere.” Hell Jimi, what can we do, beg you to come back? I’m pissed off about his death just like I’ve been pissed off any time I ever heard of anybody o.ding on anything.
Whatever measure of radicalism any of us contains, it seems wise that we all remember that that radicalism is only valuable as it is approached with (not moderation, exactly) but with caution, with respect, with courage, with common sense, with cosmic sense, too, for sure but most of all as it is approached with the force of life rather than the force of death. That’s , what made the Days of Rage seem so insipid to me while the Bank of Amerika burning down or the bombing of the college gookdeath factory in Wisconsin seem even inspirational. That’s one reason why I’m positive that John Sinclair and Jack Forrest and Pun Plamondon didn’t do those CIA bombings and draft board bombings . . . they weren’t effective, they weren’t practical, they were nonsensical they weren’t approached in a revolutionary manner.
And the same thing goes for drug destruction . . . bogus LSD is about as worthless as bogus the is about as worthless as any kind of heroin or downer. Jimi Hendrix and A1 Wilson died because they didn't have the common sense to stay away from drugs like that, no matter what reason they didn't have the common sense. They just didn’t have that kind of sense.
And the only thing we can do (and must do, we can’t mourn except by doing) is to wipe the Plague of Heroin and the Plague of Downers and the Plague of Bogus Death and Control Drugs (and if I’ve left speed out, it’s only because it seems removed from these two, even though it isn’t in the least) off the face of the earth. To get high we’re gonna have to fight against all those kinds of things and to stay high we’re gonna have to fight against control addicts on all the other beaureaucratic bullshit governmental levels that control addicts exist at.
Back to Burroughs, who says the only way to get rid of junk is to get rid of the junkie. Not the supplier for as long as there are people who want the drug there will be people insane enough to supply it.
Off the pig, yes, for sure. But off the pig inside as well (and that means off sexism, that means off racism, that means off control-ism, that means off death) or you haven’t offed any pig except the easiest. And it’s probably a lot easier to kill someone than to kill the parts of yourself that are porcine.
If, in the end, we learn that much,
then Jimi Hendrix and Alan Wilson didn’t just die. That’s about all we have left to offer them.
Right on/Be Free.
