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THE BEAT GOES ON

A Lesbian dwarf named Charley. A roller-skating chimpanzee named Jiggs. A Central American boa constrictor named Lola. An oversized aluminum garbage can filled with ice, cans of pre-mixed drinks and fifths of wine. A seven-finger switchblade knife.

January 1, 1973
Nick Tosches

The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.

Lights! Camera! Lesbian Dwarf!

A Lesbian dwarf named Charley. A roller-skating chimpanzee named Jiggs. A Central American boa constrictor named Lola. An oversized aluminum garbage can filled with ice, cans of pre-mixed drinks and fifths of wine. A seven-finger switchblade knife. A tank of helium. Five cases of beer.

These and other images culled from the recurrent dreams of cerebrovascular patients were brought together under the same roof for the first time recently when Warner Brothers unpacked their cameras to film th^ir promotional Alice Cooper/“Elected” movie.

A podium, resplendent behind the Seal of the President, stood at front stage center, Cabinet members’ seats flanking its sides. Rows of folding wooden chairs were set up facing the stage. About eighty or so people, known for their general tendency toward never having anything better to do at any given time, some of a most profligate nature, had been invited to get drunk for free and be in the movie, and, shortly after one in the afternoon, they began drifting in to CBS’ cavernous 30th Street studio in New York. The beer ran out and more was procured. People started knocking off the canned whisky sours, vodka collinses, and bottles of wine. Charley, up to your waist and bedecked in a polka-dot clown costume and grease-painted mug, began loading everybody up with red, white and blue-banded straw hats, balloons, pennants, buttons, trick cigars, and very bad jokes (e.g., “Hey! You look like a balloon!”). Alice, sans shirt, was occupied in swilling beer and practicing with his switchblade.

There were three sloppy takes of Alice and company mounting the stage to a raving audience of delegates, making his speech and being cheered. Folks rushed back for more booze between each take, until, by the time the fourth take rolled around, the scene evolved into a Bud-drooling Alice, boa constrictor coiled about his neck, flaunting a switchblade while campaigning his laissez-faire policy toward the ghetto problems of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, while being hit with a barrage of hats, paper, plates, cigars, and beer cans (your reporter gave freely to his neighbors from the pile of emptied aluminum that had grown at his feet) that slapped against the podium’s Seal, and, finally, degenerated into a drunken mass of frenzied humans knocking apart the props.

Guess they just don’t make them like they used to.

Nick Tosches

Never Say Ever

If the ACLU ever said I did something right, I would kill myself.

—Jerry V. Wilson, D.C. Police Chief (as quoted in The Washington Post)

Three days following that statement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held its regular monthly meeting in the John Quincy Adams room of the Hotel Bon Vivant in downtown Washington. After dispensing with routine business, reading reports from various committees and planning a membership drive among servicemen stationed in the Washington area, a motion was submitted for approval by Sidney O’Connell, a Takoma Park (Maryland) doctor. It read as follows:

A RESOLUTION

* WHEREAS the national capital area had a record snowfall of seven and one-half inches during the first week of December, 1971, and

* WHEREAS to insure safe passage along major traffic corridors in the metropolitan area it becomes necessary for the snow to be removed from the streets, and

* WHEREAS this job was done with effedency, expediency and with malice towards rume, and . ...

* WHEREAS the overall operation of snow removal for the District of Columbia is under the aegis of the Metropolitan Police Department of which Jerry V. Wilson is Chief

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED

that the American Civil liberties Union D.C. Chapter hereby commends Chief Wilson for a job well performed in accordance with the spirit and letter of the law for the betterment of all citizens.

According to the minutes of the meeting taken by recording secretary Karen Scott, the resolution was passed by a vote of 11 to 4, with three abstentions.

Tom Miller

"Up yours," says Grace Slick. It got her a Playboy centerfold invitation. She turned it down.

Jefferson Airplane Takes It Off

It was the best rock show of the year, but not for the usual reasons. It made you realize how much the let’s-getit-on cause-we’re-playin’-in-the-Band! projection of the average popstar makes you want to strangle him in his own embroidered leathers.

The Airplane made mistakes and they were surly. They were, well, a house divided. They also divided the house.

They lost the fifteen year olds who wanted to boogie live to “White Rabbit,” those kids who were twelve the last time the Airplane touched down for a free concert in Grant Park, whose parents wouldn’t let them out of the house because it was the summer after the Convention. (A good thing, too, for as I stomped out of it and out on my then-boyfriend, Gracie yelled “You got in for free, so whyncha take the five bucks you saved and buy some acid!”)

The other half, the half who remember the Haight, even if only the idea of the Haight and the temple bells and that one shining hour when rock bands played for you, and for the music, and for causes, showing up in whatever they were wearing whenever they were summoned because they were just a bunch of music freaks ... well, they’ll stick around forever.

The Airplane got real and it wasn’t in the act and Gracie was the show. Musically the show went to Casady (“He thinks he’s in tune. By now. But he won’t be. He’ll be flat. But don’t tell him.”) and Kaukonen, with energetic treble assists from Papa John and his green beret. Barbata drums good and David Freiberg, stand-in tambourine and flat vocalist, should probably be drowned.

There was some dead air, but when they cooked, they burnt.

And then Grace ... decked out in a black nylon floor-length skirt, transparent puckered shirt, curly black natural and the black eye she won losing her fist fight over obscenity with the Akron cops, she looked swell. More fun than the show. She also looked a little, well, just a little ... wrecked.

Ambling on to the first of many audience non-negotiables for “White Rabbit,” she pointed out Papa John’s hat for a big round of applause. Etc. And the band charged right into “Somebody . to Love,” and it was all very merry. Peace. Love. Ripple. The Jefferson Airplane! Far out, and, Jesus, you could almost hear those Hare Krishna bells.

Then the monitors faded out and vocals fell flatter. “Sing ‘White Rabbit,’ Gracie!” piped the juvenile gentlemen.

“I can’t,” she retorted. “The blond Nazi on my right,” she said, pointing to Kantner, “makes up our list. He never tells me. I don’t know what’s on it. What he says, goes. That’s the Nazi on my right. Stage right. Your left.” This continued. A joke, right? Funny, right? Kantner never said a word all evening.

“Sing ‘White Rabbit,’ Gracie!!”

“It’s on the cassette, sweetie. Lay off. That was 19651 Are you still with the same old lady you were with seven years ago? Think about it.” They did something else.

“Can I have your beer, Gracie?”

“Oh, sure,” she mumbled. “Just what are you planning to do with it? Sure there’s enough for you all.” She muttered something about drinking in the Auditorium and a few more kiddies clamored for Budweiser. “You can have it, jackass.” It looked like a pretty deliberate aim and the lady’s got a good arm.

Bear in mind that the CasadyKaukonen axis cheerfully ignored, or perhaps humored, any hint of temperament on anyone’s part. They just wanted to tune. That may be why they looked as surprised as I was when, after the shrillest adolescent shout of “Take it off!” Gracie yanked that black nylon skirt to her shoulders, let it fall, and powerhoused right into the next number. No, she wasn’t wearing underwear. Yes, she’s a natural brunette, and I hope I look that good six years and one kid down the road.

In the pre-encore will-they-won’tthey suspense, Gracie neatly clipped some wings. The guys all trooped off to thundering cheers (it was a good show) and a certain call-back. Grace stayed right there squatting on the floor, teasing the audience. It wasn’t fun. She teased the guys. She spoke a little about being the girl in the band, about the Nazi proclaiming songs, about how she didn’t like Women’s Libbers because they paraded around in dirty jeans like dirty pigs, but still they had a point, and about how the guys would never pass up a chance to do an encore.

They didn’t. When they left again the house lights were long since up and Gracie still sat on the floor, staring down the crowd. “You want another encore? They’ll be back. Are they really that good? What if they don’t come back? I’ll sing for you.” She tried to talk to the crowd. Adolescent illiterati who’d paid $6.50 to sit in the front row and get it on, man, weren’t having any of this reality shit. What’s happening, Jones, old kid? “I was born here,” she said quietly as she stood up. “Isn’t that weird? Did you know that? I was bom in Chicago.” She slammed the mike onto the stage and walked off. A few kids clapped.

Beth Lester

Poop On Py thon

For those who might still be wondering, here’s the poop on Python Lee Jackson.

An R&B combo of the same name once held forth at Australia’s equivalent of the Peppermint Lounge, belting them blues with a style which brought them great renown with the three inhabitants of that continent. Their big draw was a lead singer who managed to sound uncannily like Stevie Winwood and could do the Jerk on a stool while he sang, unhampered by* the childhood amputation of both his legs. When the group decided to migrate to England in search of fame in 1965, the crippled singer was left behind.

The group knocked about England for several years, losing and gaining members, until 1970 when Miki Dallon formed his Youngblood record label. Dallon was a producer of long standing and a recording artist in his own right, so it’s likely that he was at least acquainted with most of England’s top musicians. Among those musicians was Rod Stewart, who happened to be present at Python’s long-overdue first recording session and lent his voice to three of the tracks. “In a Broken Dream” was first released in December of 1970, and failed to make the charts. Its 1972 success on GNP Records in the U.S. spurred the release of the album. It’s probable, however, that the group is no longer together, since there have been no rumors of a $5,000,000 contract with Columbia.

Greg Shaw

Bobby Fischer Meets Bugs Bunny

All Gollywood is abuzz with disc industry fever as American International Chess Champ Bobby Fischer is signed to Warner Brothers Records. The selling price for this handsome hunk of mind was named somewhere in the neighborhood of six figures, and everything at Warner Brothers itself is go go go in preparation for a major hype.

“He’s gonna be a monster,” gasped one Warner’s promo man. “We haven’t seen anything like this since Hendrix.”

Warner Brothers President Joe Smith concurred, adding: “Fischer is an international hero like we’ve never had before in this country. He has renewed a national interest in the game of chess and we are excited at the prospect of presenting Fischer and his winning strategies to an interested public.”

All is hush-hush as far as recording plans go, although the company will reveal that Bobby’s first album will be a two-record set produced by John Cale. One album will consist of basic moves through winning strategies as discussed by Fischer, while the other will spotlight the world premiere of Bobby’s talented tonsils, singing a wide range of current popular favorites, including “Alone Again (Naturally),” “Everybody Plays the Fool,” “Lady Stardust” and “Tumbling Dice.” The album will be accompanied by a special packaging of a chess board and supplementary book by Fischer, and will be serviced to chess clubs and societies as well as the standard record outlets.