[Catalog No.: DP-19661125]
In Search of a Frame
Berkeley Barb, November 25, 1966, p. 6

There has been talk of a psychedelic revolution (overthrow or return to source). It is yet to be seen. There is perhaps a germinal revolution, barely born, but already torn at and choked by residue from the past. We are at a loss for a frame of reference within which to operate freely, harmoniously and generously.

These questions are dedicated to re-discovering that province bordered by childhood and compromise, death and resurrection.

There is a magazine on the stands called ID. It has a full page ad by Bally shoes, a full page by Town Squire and a nice picture of Big Brother and the Holding Co. It's mod, camp, -- an organ of the revolution. There are tribes of natives that will not be photographed because they believe that the photographer then possesses their spirit. One might laugh, but they are correct. Big Brother had his image lifted while he wasn't looking. Whatever the revolutionary implications of his band are, none threaten Town Squire and Bally and all they stand for. By sponsoring the magazine the merchants simply attached the rock-revolution image to their product the same way they would have attached Loretta Young's in the '40s or Mickey Mantle's in the 50's.

The Charlatans recently filmed a hair tonic commercial. What is their excuse for contributing to an unlovely and crumby state of mind, a lie (people will love you if your hair's combed/breath's bright/tits big)? Is it money? Exposure? Why that's just like Jayne Mansfield. The fame/power/money trip is the old story again, hardly central to making music or beads or flutes or any disinterested act of involvement, of worship. It's a bad habit, or are the boys telling us where they really are?

Why is it necessary to pay two and a half dollars to go to a dance. What's revolutionary about that? Bands don't have to join the union. The unions don't care a damn about consumers, they're out for their slice of the pie. Why join except to get your slice? Why pay rent on a hall? Why not pressure the city into putting on block dances, parking lot dances, FREE dances. Would Chet Helm and Bill Graham oppose that? That would be a revolution; something joyous and free in America.

It seems curious that the first public manifestation of psychedelics was the dances at two and a half a shot. Liberation on weekends. Get rid of your filthy materialistic cash .....give it to me.

Where will Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead et al go but up to bigger gigs, better publicity, managers -- etc. until they are ***STARS***. Where's the revolution? Long-hair? Beautiful clothes? Would our soldiers be substantially different if we dressed them mod? John Wayne in Carnaby St. clothes.

Reaction is not liberation. Why do kids panhandle for dimes instead of tomatoes? Why steal indiscriminately. Why not ask for what you really want (or is it money?)? Why not steal from the victimizers (use your imagination) and leave the victims (use your instincts) alone?

Have we come this far to be caught in the game of opposites? If the society is A are we to be anti-A or can we make the leap to B or out of alphabets altogether? As it is now, the street scene is the subliminal content of capitalism: egocentric, competitive, and material. The reaction to lousy politics is no politics; the reaction to mind-prison Communism has been no communism; the reaction to bullshit ideology has been no ideology ... in all cases the logical obverse; the least imaginative and most obvious recourse.

Safety lies in the imagination, in harmony, in the resolution of contradictions between knowledge and action. We have lots of knowledge but it's useless unless it changes acts or frame of reference. We live in a society which is structured in such a way as not to admit knowledge which will damage it and we grow up with these same dichotomies. nice man like Ralph Gleason writes for an organ of our contemporary consciousness; the factory owner studies the Greeks at night and gives scholarships, Africa's Voerward was a philosopher. What in his knowledge of that discipline prevented him from being a fascist?

An instant behind the professors' lectern innocent people, yellow children of God, are being sizzled by the idea that gives Sonny a yellow Chevrolet. America tells us that there is no mangled foot in the glove compartment, but some shrink stink gets us dizzy at high speeds. The teacher grades the integers of war industry, has to, always will until he stops. The only way to avoid a game is to stop playing it.

The problem is to preserve human consciousness long enough to alter it. We must recognize that tactically (though not as a principle) there is an "us" and "them" and them wants our ass. Not to recognize that is crazy dangerous. The McCarthy period, as its euphemistically referred to showed quite clearly what happened to the loner in the face of centralized oppression: thousands of people were quietly pulled from their jobs while their colleagues stood idly by or replaced them in an effort to hold onto what they had. If they hadn't stood by there would have been something like a general strike and McCarthy would have died glad years earlier than he did. Expect to face the same oppression and expression of fear and outrage that all dissenters through history have faced.

Things are going well but should go better. They can only go better when we investigate our own directions and see which are outmoded reactions from the past and which are true.

The "hip" merchants along Haight Street with notable exception (Psych shop and Phoenix) are talking about ridding the street of "loiterers" (on public streets?) and panhandlers -- the kids that made the scene they are there to capitalize on. "Money doesn't talk, it swears" so do it for free. Do it for love. That way is safety.

One more frame of reference: Man is a herd animal. Ecologically the herd is a protective device. It is also warm and comforting in the dark.

[Signed --Zapata]