Ah, Lori Hayman Helms.  So beautiful she was.  And probably still is.

Lori was Chet Helm’s wife, but he got all the glory.  Chet was the outgoing, easygoing impresario with the Texas accent who founded Big Brother and the Holding Company, then went on to pioneer the weekly rock dances at the Avalon Ballroom.  Without Chet and the Family Dog, the Haight-Ashbury as we remember it never would have happened.  So Chet got all the press, all the glory.  Lori got nothing but grief.

I remember their big wedding bash in December, 1965.  Chet rented a hall in the Mission somewhere and everybody was there in their finest thrift store finery.  What a scene! My date Linda Lovely wore the black beaded flapper dress I’d scored for her at a thrift shop in Virginia City.   I knew only my belted maroon velvet smoking jacket, my striped bell bottoms - wool, very classy - my high collared, mod navy blue shirt with its tiny white flowers scattered in every direction, my long flowing Pondering Pig locks and, of course, my shiny black Beatle boots, de rigueur in the era, only these could match the splendor of the occasion.

The hippies’ own rock band, The Charlatans, were on form that night, playing the most danceable rock ‘n roll in the City That Knows How, and all the hippies were sweatin’ it out on the dance floor.  I ran into my pal Peter Kramer and he introduced me to his new guitar-playing friend Terry MacNeil. They were writing songs together and getting ready to start a band called the Sopwith Camel.   Peter had never sang a note in his life as far as I remember  - he was an aspiring filmmaker - but why should that stop him?  He was clever, he wrote funny lyrics and, hey, George Hunter, leader of The Charlatans, couldn’t even play an instrument.  He’d taken up autoharp so he could hold something onstage.  This was 1965, man.  Possibility was rife!

What a party! Chet was floating, pot was smoking, pigs were dancing, punch was drinking - where was Lori?

I hope she was smiling.

Lori was a sweetheart and as beautiful as Jean Shrimpton (for those who came in late, The Shrimp was the most famous English Supermodel of the era) but watching Lori was like watching a living Antonioni film -  quiet, with big lost eyes. She was hurting inside, even I could see that - but what it was I never knew. She kept her heart hidden. Lori wasn’t unique - it’s funny how many gorgeous bohemians I knew with hearts like that  - the Valium generation.

Oh, one more little memory - about eight months earlier I moved into a two-story flat on Page Street. Chet and Lori were living in the attic, the nicest room in the house, and Chet was running the place.   What I particularly remember was their cat - a fat tortoiseshell named Hecate. Hecate - the goddess of witchcraft, right? Appropriate for a cat. And you could also pronounce it, “Heah, kitty.”

I’ve heard vaguely that today Lori is a Shakespearean scholar of some renown. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen the kid in forty years. God bless her - and that goes for all you Haight-Ashbury girls.

Photo by Marilyn Jones McGrew

I know I just blogged about the old boy last week, but here he is again.  R. Crumb, creator of Mr. Natural, Flakey Foont, Schuman The Human and of course the scandalous Angelfood McSpade, turns 65 today, making him eligible for Medicare, should he ever come back to the States, and earning him a rightful place in the Pig’s legion of battered and bruised but still standing - Survivors of the Sixties.

We’re starting a new series on The Pig today, but I’m not sure what to call it yet.  We will be featuring  photos of the remarkably lovely women who graced the streets of the Haight-Ashbury in those halcyon days of yore.  (The above is not one of the babes, by the way.  That’s Pigpen.  We asked him to stand in for the babes until we find a name for the real Babes, and he reluctantly agreed.  Which explains his expression.)

With the Pondering Pig as your guide, we’ll revisit those charming fashion dissenters of the mid-Sixties - before the fashion pundits taught everyone what was truly psychedelic and what was not.  Here’s a psychedelic fashion pundit now:  “Paisley!  Paisley is  SO psychedelic - look at all those swirling things that look like cells of consciousness expanding.  Swirling things that look like brain cells are so now! But you must never wear checks - they’re…absolutely…square!”

Plus, our Babes will be topped with the finest Swiss treble cream milk chocolate and served on a bed of cherry surprise.

What shall we name this new series?  I like Babes of the Haight-Ashbury. It’s classic, you know?  It’s the  word that never went away, just as current today as it was 150 years ago.  It leads to lovely adjectives like “Babe-a-licious”  In fact maybe we should call the series “Babe-a-licious Babes of the Haight-Ashbury.” Or is that too Wayne’s World?

The only problem with the word is - it’s slightly offensive.  I can already see my in-box piled high with notes from irate women shouting, “You only love me for my body!”

So, how about “Belles of The Haight-Ashbury”?  That’s not offensive in the least.  Trouble is it sounds like rich girls wearing muffs while they ice skate in Central Park in 1892.

Twentieth Century Foxes? Nah. Too LA.

Piglet of the Month?

How about “Slum Goddesses of the Haight-Ashbury”?  Allen Cohen, editor of the super-psycho-spirito-conscious-o-turnon-o-San Francisco Oracle, actually considered this name for an Oracle series. It comes from  the song “Slum Goddess of the Lower East Side” by the seminal anti-psychedelic pychedelic group, The Fugs, and I’ve read the Village Voice actually ran a series by that name.  So it’s got the period flavor.  But the fact that Allen ultimately nixed the idea gives it an aura of failure, certainly not appropriate for the Pondering Pig.

I’m running out of ideas.  So I need help.  Please improve on my suggestions with comments below by next week or we’re going with “Babe-a-licious Babes of the Haight”, okay?

Photos of lovely Haight-Ashbury maidens (matrons okay too) may be sent to ponderingpig@yahoo.com.  My Assistant, The Pondering Chicken,  will start tabulating this afternoon! Stay tuned.

(Photo of Pigpen by the dependable Herbie Greene and swiped from his Book of the Dead.)

Here’s my Dad and Uncle Pres hoofing it down the Midway of the San Francisco’s Golden Gate Exposition on Labor Day, 1940.  Wives and kids are presumably somewhere nearby out of camera range.  Maybe Dad and Uncle Pres dropped them off at the Aquacade while they stepped out for a quick one at Shanghai Lil’s.

It’s Labor Day.  A holiday.  Nobody’s going to work later, yet, as you’ve probably noticed, they’re both dressed to the hilt in business suits with vests and floppy pants, dress shirts, ties and, in Dad’s case, a jaunty fedora.  Their overcoats are draped over their arms in case the fog comes in.  They’re in their comfort zone, a newspaper guy and a building contractor.  It’s just how guys dress.

Okay, now here’s two normal American guys of today.  They’re roughly the same age as Dad and Uncle Pres in the first picture (early thirties). And, like Dad and Uncle Pres, they’re out for a summer holiday, if in a slightly warmer climate.

These guys would probably rather be shot than make a fashion choice, but they’ve made some nevertheless.  For one thing, they’re both branded.  Their tee shits tell us they’re Aeropostale kind of guys. The man on the right is also a Sony kind of guy.  If we could read his hat we’d learn something else about him.

I have no intention of making pig jokes about them - they look pretty much like the rest of American hetero guys in their thirties today - on a summer Saturday when they’re not going to work later.

My question is simply…is this all there is? Couldn’t we guys get together and figure out how to look a little more interesting without going all the way back to 1940?  Or having to send stuff to the cleaners? Besides, I hate floppy trousers as much as you do, but jeans and tee shirts just don’t feel that cool any more.

Continued from last time…

Back in ‘66  me and a couple of pals got this idea for a power trio.  Nobody was doing power trios then, I guess because nobody was good enough - but not being good enough didn’t stop us!  No way!  I practiced up on fife,  Jascha figured out how to play fiddle and of course Prackers held down keyboards.  After a few weeks, we were rockin’.  Unlike most of the bands of that era, we were so hot we didn’t even need drums.  Jerry Garcia used to always say he was going to drop by to jam with us one of these days.  So that’s how we knew we were good.

I liked it when we practiced.  Pretty soon the police would be breaking down the door and it got really exciting.  Plus the free publicity!

We decided to call ourselves Everpresent Anxiety.  Jascha was into this Kirkegaard thing so each of us took one of his books and wrote songs out of them.  I worked out Fear and Trembling - did a Chuck Berry thing with it with some folk-rock mixed in.  Did you ever read Fear and Trembling?  It’s really long! Truth is I couldn’t remember all the words, so when I got stuck I would just wail on Tra La La!  Tra la la! Really spontaneous, you know?

The high point was our version of Is There Such a Thing as Teleological Suspension of the Ethical? Oh, our friends all told us it couldn’t be done, the teenyboppers wouldn’t get it, and on and on, but we just took that as a challenge.  It was a time of experimentation, new frontiers,  breaking the boundaries - and we were breaking Kirkegaard!  Philosophy Rock!

Finally we were ready.  We took the bus down to the Avalon to audition.  We started off with one of our strongest numbers, Sickness Unto Death, and Chet Helms said he thought we had something.  Maybe we should all go home and rest.  But finally he came around.  He said if we stuck to Rolling Stones covers we could have a Sunday afternoon slot.  The only thing was - the name had to go.

“What’s wrong with Everpresent Anxiety, Chet?  It’s perfect for our new sound.”

“Yeah, but it sounds too much like Everpresent Fullness. “

“So?”

“They’re a band!  They playing on the same bill with the Sir Douglas Quintet next week.  That’s their name!”

We couldn’t believe it.  How dare they!  Probably from LA too!  We rode the bus back to the Haight shaking our heads.  Why would anyone name a band after a digestive problem?

But Practical thought maybe bands named after digestive problems would be the new thing and we should have one too.  Prakky always had good ideas so we worked on it.

Jascha said, “Well, how about Duodenal Ulcer?  That’s a digestive problem.”  Prac thought about it while we transferred to the Haight Street bus.  Pretty soon he said it was good but he thought Peptic Ulcer would be even better.  Sounded peppier, you know?

Me:  “Ulcers Schmulzers.  Lets call ourselves Heartburn!  It’s got everything!  Romantic desolation, rage against the system and digestive problems all in one!”

But we never could agree so after a couple of weeks we gave up and just called ourselves The Three Pigs.

I think it was the name, but maybe hippies just weren’t ready for three guys wearing sailor suit jackets and no pants.  Our big Sunday afternoon tryout fell apart.  The hippies didn’t even want to hear Teleological Suspension.  They just kept shouting Off The Pigs! Off The Pigs!  It was a debacle.

Finally, we fought back.  Improvised an incredible Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?, chanting the final Tra la la  Tra la la like we were Vanilla Fudge.  Show them!  Chet finally had to cut the power and the rent-a-cops led us off stage in handcuffs.  It was so embarrassing!

I don’t know.  We tried to regroup, and we got a few gigs around the Bay Area, mostly playing nursery schools and zoos.  Finally we threw in the towel and went back to building houses out of sticks and things.  All because of Everpresent Fullness.

Did you ever look at an old rock poster and wonder who the acts advertised actually were?  Like this one for instance…

Some ugly looking poster, huh?  Actually it’s a handbill, but that’s no excuse.

Love.  Rock scholars and sixties people will recognize the name right away. They were from LA, came up to San Francisco from time to time to try to break into our In Crowd,  and finally went on to rock and roll glory with their 1967 album, Forever Changes. It’s a great album. In fact, it’s the best of all the American takes on Sergeant Pepper, and possibly the only successful take ever (The Rolling Stones’ shot at it, Their Satanic Majesty’s Request was grim- their biggest mistake of the sixties).  But Forever Changes is pretty damn good.  I listened to it regularly until my turntable gave up and I gave all my LPs away - oh whadda fool!

Even their early single, My Little Red Book, deserves a three-decker rock and roll cake.  It blasted pure rock and roll fervor at a time when the music was getting just a little too flabby for my taste.   I downloaded the song from Itunes just now to check and, yes, it’s still drives like a 1966 Batmobile.   But in 1966 to my piggy ears they were just another okay band from LA.  Let them entertain us if they choose, but never shall they be invited into our superior society, he sniffed with snout held high.

At the time of this concert, Love’s first album was in the stores.  It was regularly seen in Haight-Ashbury collections because, unlike the  the Jefferson Airplane’s boring first album was and the Grateful Dead’s first outing - which, not to put too fine a point on it, stunk, Love’s first wasn’t half bad.

But who in heck was Everpresent Fullness?  Therein lies a story…

Next: The Pig’s Sad Story

Personally, I think Boomers get too much credit for stuff they had nothing to do with.  Take the creation of modern rock music in the 1960s.  Face it, boomers, the oldest possible member of your illustrious group was born nine months after V-J Day, which comes out to be June, 1946.  There were a few child prodigy boomer rockers like Little Stevie Wonder, who was born in 1950 and had his first hit in 1963, but these guys are few and far between.  The great majority of the forces who changed rock ‘n roll into rock were born in the unremarked decade: 1936-1946.

Take David Crosby, for instance, born August 14, 1941.  (My gosh!  That makes him 67 years old today!  What a coincidence!).

He was a Santa Barbara kid, scion of film folk, going to school in nearby Montecito where the rich kids live, and in Carpinteria, a normal beach town for kids who get kicked out of Montecito. He made a few cursory attempts at drama at Santa Barbara City College. Then he jumped on the folk music bandwagon and split for the wide world beyond.

By 1963, he was hanging out in LA with Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke — the Byrds.  At first, they looked like just another American wannabe British Invasion band, but oh that sound!  That gorgeous, unique, David Crosby master-minded harmony sound and McGuinn’s ringing 12 string Rickenbacker.  Man, you could tell it was The Byrds in one second.

Here’s their 1966 hit, Eight Miles High.  Crosby got the writing credit for it although in truth it was a group production.  After all these years it still stands alone in my mind, a monument, maybe a blind alley.  It’s a remarkable attempt to break out from folk-rock into free jazz - and it actually made the charts (how wild was 1966?).  Actually, I like the song better today than I did back in the day, when my ears heard unformed mishmash.

After David left The Byrds (irreconcilable differences - they wouldn’t record his songs), he got together with some other pals to form Crosby, Stills and Nash and rocketed from stardom to superstardom.

CSNY cut much of their best material at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, including the classic Deja Vu.  And Crosby brought in many of San Francisco’s finest for his 1971 solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name - Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann from the Dead; Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady from the Airplane; Gregg Rolie and Michael Shrieve from Santana; David Frieberg from Quicksilver.  Crosby is always strongest as a collaborator, he brings out the good stuff in himself and his band mates.

Here’s one of David’s most famous from that era: Long Time Coming, a semi-acoustic version from the early ’90s.

You probably already know about the tabloid scandals, the millions of dollars up his nose or down his arm, the arrests, jail time, liver transplant, fathering Melissa Etheridge’s kids bla bla bla - who cares? Let’s start saving up to see the kickoff of the 2008 Crosby Nash Tour September 27 at Oakland’s Paramount Theater.  Orchestra seats still available at $125 per.  Hey, bring the family!

Congratulations, David on making your 67th birthday.  See yuh on the road.

Here’s a penny for the old guy.

Photo credits: Patrushka, Up From The Deep, P.S. Zollo

Here’s Robert Crumb in early 1973 standing in front of his mural on the Mission Rebels building, South Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco.  Photo was taken by Marilyn Jones McGrew.

I’d be surprised if any pig fan doesn’t know who Robert Crumb is, but just in case, Robert is usually credited as the originator of the San Francisco underground comix scene, and by extension, the inspiration behind every underground comic created  from 1967 until today. The first issue of Zap Comics, written and drawn that year by Crumb, kicked off the long parade.

More from Marilyn Jones McGrew: “Although Jack Jackson’s comic ‘God Nose’ probably predates ‘Zap’, as ‘Jaxon’ was publishing his own underground comic from the Texas State Capitol building in the basement print shop (literally underground) as early as 1964,  Robert is generally credited with creating the San Francisco comix scene. “  And, the Pig adds, I was reading Gilbert Shelton’s Wonder Warthog stories in San Francisco as early as 1965. But they weren’t for sale anywhere.  They were passed from hand to hand.

Marilyn continues, “Robert began his book publishing career with a wonderfully romantic full-color illustrated novel entitled the ‘Yum Yum Book’.  This documented his obsession and desire for the fully developed female physique; which netted him his first wife, the amazing and completely original Dana Crumb (who is still alive and well in Potter Valley).

Before much time had passed Robert’s libido was freed to such an extent that he immersed himself further into his sexual fantasies, which had been tremendously influenced (and corrupted) by his early years of oppressive Catholic upbringing.  Much of his later comix work clearly could be considered anti-female in the extreme.  Yet there is no doubt that he is a gifted artist and immensely productive to this day.”

Thanks Marilyn, for your excellent portrait of the obsessive Mr. Crumb.  We’re looking forward to more from your archives of Haight-Ashbury luminaries.

I called Precita Eyes Mural Center in San Francisco to find out how the Crumb mural is holding up after thirty plus years.  It may be holding up very well, but we won’t know unless Crumb reaches Da Vinci status, and the mural archaeologists start removing paint.  That’s the trouble with murals.  Time passes.  Buildings get sold and new owners don’t care about R. Crumb murals.  And, apparently R. Crumb doesn’t care much either.  His one and only mural is not mentioned on the Official R. Crumb Website.

The answer here: Pondering Pig’s Guide To Pronouncing South Ossetia.  Always glad to be of help.

Eva, Colin, Theanna & Wes Wilson. Taken at their Lagunitas, Marin County home, circa 1970.   Photo by Harlan Floyd.

Wes, of course, is the founder of rock poster art.  Not literally, - the first San Francisco rock poster was created by Mike Ferguson and George Hunter of The Charlatans to advertise their mid-1965 gig at the Red Dog Saloon.  But Wes’ wraparound lettering set the tone for an entire generation of psychedelic poster designers,  His ideas can still be heard echoing through the design canyon today…

Back in the mid-Seventies Wes and Eva decided to do the back-to-the-land thing, and, unlike most, they made a success of it.  Today, when he’s not rounding up the cattle, Wes practices his art out in the barn - now his studio.  Get the full story at Wes’ website: www.wes-wilson.com It’s full of interesting reminiscences about the sixties as well as his more current work.

Eva , a luminary in her own right, eventually went back to school, earned her Ph.D and today practices in Missouri as a clinical psychologist.  Together since the mid-Sixties, Wes and Eva are a true Haight-Ashbury success story.  Way to go, guys.