Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

The Beat poets were smarter
and the Surrealists were smarter
most poets were smarter
then people are now
the surrealist was smart because
they did not have television
they read lots of books
and they got a lot from what they read
they knew what was worth reading
the Beat writers were not so affected
by television, it was in its infancy
they did not sit in front of a little tube
they drank and smoked and talked
about literature

but this was after the world war
and the shadow of the A bomb
those guys felt the shit coming down the pike
those beatniks were smarter because
they saw what the war did
just as the surrealists saw what the first war did

now people know how to use a computer
but they don't have the same sense for the beat
and the surreal, which the same could be said
for music, the magic of a Jimi Hendrix
or early Bod Dylan, yeah those guys were smarter

Bukowski was smarter because he wrote
he did not just believe what he was told about
he wrote about what be believed
the hippies were smarter too, because they
came from that Beat time, from the conformist
fifties that the beatniks did not dig, they were
looking for that cool thing, and jazz was too

this was all before the non intelligence agency
was planing ways to keep us stupid, dig what I'm sayin

I was around wavy gravy and Ben and jerry commune on highway 9.. near Santa Cruz
We ate acid and did g tanks of nitrous- in the name of super star angels-- it was a relief to surrender to stupidity
I know far too many intelligent intellectuals with twisted hearts
Many of those hippies and beatniks have surrendered to a more spiritual life
Which to some does not seem smart
Perhaps the smart thing is laced with ambition and judgement
I cling to my dog
I think he is smart
Perhaps I am also I just do not know it yet

When I think of the beatniks and the hippies I'm thinking of a different time
because of what we were suppose to be, which was to fit in and conform
it was a different time, because we were coming out of some kind
of illusion that we could change the world, but we were not as bombarded
by unhealthy things, as people are now, like cell phones or chemtrails
or GMO foods, vaccininations so in that sense people are dumbed down, not to mention
all the meds they put the children on. I did not like the education system
but it is so much worse now.

The hippies had the right idea, they wanted
to live in communal situations and teach their children well, but of course
the powers that be had other plans, and most of the " normal" people
were afraid of what the hippies were trying to say. I liked the surrealists
because they were artists and poets, and they spoke truth. I was never too keen
on the new age movement, I was in a meditation community in Boulder Creek
for a year in the mid seventies, so I learned about meditation, but I guess
I was too much of a beatnik hippie poet for them.

In the sixties and early seventies a person could have a job and a car
and go to collage, all that changed but also the poets the beats
and the folk singers and young people were against the Vietnam war
and that brought young people together, the war and civil rights.

Does it seem like we are living in the same world, years later
and nothing but war war war, we protested war, but what
are collage students protesting now. How can you be on the left
and be pro war, the liberals use to be for the workers for human
rights, where did the hippies go. Where are the surrealists the poets.

True!

I think it is very difficult to know what is true
taking psychedelics can make you see what isn't true
the irony is that the hippies wanted to see
but we were diverted by being inundated with LSD
so we were too involved with tripping ,I know I was
but that is because there was nothing else to do
because nobody taught me anything, my father
was a wage slave, the only thing i remember
him saying is, get a job, but I did not feel inspired
by seeing him go to work at the factory, and come home
and never have anything to say but, get a job

I did take LSD in 67' 68' as a teenager, that was my
high school education, so I tripped for those two years
but after that I began to want to know some truth
so I began reading books, I read some Alan Watts
but I began to be attracted to literature, and then poetry
When I left home at nineteen and went to Santa Cruz
it was the biggest hippie town in the world.
Truth was somewhere out there and I was going to find me some.

I bet we have eaten of the same jam- remember that big wooden statue guy? He's in Oregon now- remember the place where the water ran through it?
Live music... that wierd bar overlooked the river- I think the earth swallowed some people in Ben lommand- the land grew weary
Maybe it was all that tripping
Maybe not
But the goat lady would go on the ridge
- I heard later she became a nurse
My fear for many years was waking up in the emergency room with the goat lady in a nurses outfit

Yes I remember Ben Lomond with the water running through the tree, and I lived in Brook Dale for awhile, with a flute player junkie, I remember the Big Basin park, the Mystery spot
I remember living on a piece of land above Davenport with my poet friend, I remember the wild goat gypsy women that came down from the hills on a Friday night to get drunk with the hippies
and students and crazy freaks that roamed pacific avenue with the crazy freaks at the Catalyst. I remember waking up in jail a few times, I took too many quaaludes. I remember reading poetry down town on the open mic with the crazy freak poets and wild goat gypsy women I remember being slapped by one bad ass poet /