|
Chapter About Crosby, From Hank Harrison's book
THE DEAD Celestial Arts 1980
"King David"
Journal Entry. Three Days with David Crosby.
Day One, June 1971:
The schooner Mayan is a 60-foot Alden staysail schooner usually
moored in Sausalito, but often found in Maui. I had to sneak up
to the boat with camera's in the morning. It was foggy. Of course,
I knocked. Crosby emerged from below deck. Much to my surprise
he was just starting to set sail and asked me to come along.
Crosby is clearly fastidious about his boat. Kevin, the first
mate, is watchful, but open and flowing like the sea. I was put
in charge of moving the staysail halyards. We pulled out under
power about 10:30am and caught a nice gust as soon as we cleared
the Spinnaker Restaurant dock.
Again much to my surprise, there were six young ladies on board
who had been sent over from Dino Valenti's overflowing harem.
I never caught any of their names. We took a long tack to the
St Francis Yacht Club. As we came across the mouth of the Golden
Gate, the winds came straight in as usual. We heeled over and
all thirty tons of the Mayan breathed against the chop, taking
water and spray over the gunwales. The boat is so efficient in
spite of it's great weight that it is able to make seven and a
half knots.
After gearing up his Welsh mental process, and after eveything
is taken care of below deck. Crosby walks forlornly to the bowspirit
and sings to himself something like the following: "I wonder who
they are, the men who really run this land. I wonder why they
run it with such a heavy hand. What are their names, and on what
streets to they live? I'd like to ride right over and give to
them a piece of my mind about peace and mankind. Peace is not
an awful lot to ask. It is free, it is free!"
David tells me that his father is a filmmaker, won an award for
best photography for "High Noon". It was Crosby's dad who created
the great overhead boom shot of Gary Cooper walking alone down
the town street at noon. I get the distinct impression that this
great genius Crosby, this great Renaissance man, is troubled with
the world, because, like most Welshmen, he carries a great deal
neolithic philosophy and responsibility on his shoulders.
He tells me how his girlfriend died in a Volkswagon bus in San
Francisco. A cat jumped on her shoulder, and when she turned to
push the cat away, she ran into the back of a truck and died three
days later in the hospital. Perhaps David has never recovered
from this incident. He was very committed to her.
He's also deeply committed to the development of a concept in
music referred to as "The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra".
This consists of Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, David Freiberg, David
Crosby, Graham Nash, Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh,
Jorma Kaukonen and a host of others. I was in the studio when
these musicians, along with Joni Mitchell, held hands and and
sang acapella the song that David was humming as the spray beat
up against the dolphin striker that holds the prow taut to the
old hull of the Mayan.
David isn't even concerned with the groupie ladies on board. Perhaps
later he will busy himself, but for now he is absorbed by the
sea. This sailing of the schooner Mayan was done during a period
of great stress for David when he was producing his first solo
album, the second by "The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra".
Naturally, the album became a gold record, but is was stacked
from the inside, because how could it miss with all that good
music and all that talent? The first was the "Blow's Against the
Empire".
Crosby, more than any other musician in the San Francisco Bay
area, is a committed, virulent radical, who truly wishes to overthrow
the old order and develop harmonious new social rhythms based
on nature for the future. He is not only clandestine, but also
reclusive.
Since he has moved permanently to Marin County from Los Angeles,
he is able to relax more. He bought a large house in Mill Valley
and put up money to rebuild and renovate it. Sometimes you can
see him tooting across the bridge in his V-6 metaphysical black
night grinder Ferrari, affectionately named Freebase.
Day Two, October 1972
My father died in September of 1972, and David took sympathy on
me . I procurred three perfectly round patties of primo hashish
from the Fairfax spider lady, and proceeded to jump on a plane
to LA International where David had a lady named Debbie pick me
up in a Mercedes. VIP treatment all the way. I was really impressed.
My ego was soaring, I don't know what he had in mind, but I deserved
it, and I appreciated it.
One of the ladies in the car at the airport was a groupie from
London. She kept asking me why there aren't any women in outer
space. On her t-shirt I noticed the writing "Dunk Isle, Great
Barrier Reef." "Curious," I thought, "this international jet-set
really gets around."
Over dinner, at his little house, at the top of Beverly Glen,
Crosby discussed conspiracies and his conspiracy theory. He told
me about Chappaquiddick and how he somehow knew the daughter of
the Chappaquiddick ferryboat captain, and his source was direct.
He showed me a book printed in Lichtenstein in 1969 ignored in
the United States, available in Canada. The name of the book escapes
me now, but it proved conclusively that the world was owned and
operated by "Tex" Hunt, Howard Hughes, the Mafia, and the CIA.
Crosby has a strange item in his possesion. It seems to be somekind
of Polynesian archeological artifact. He determines the scruples,
ethics, intelligence, and abilities of everyone who comes into
his home by a simple test called "Identify the Object." I supposed
I only disappointed him with my mediocre ability, since I could
not identify the queer object. However, neither could anyone else.
It is lightly carved, made of some kind of apparently Polynesian
wood, and it has a slight hook on the end. It is not a kava-kava
root. It is approximately seven feet long. He claims it is heavy
magic, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it is. David isn't
really a scientist - a little king, maybe; a fabulous minstrel
maybe; a bard, for sure; but not really a hard-core scientist.
I know David is overly concerned about the world, because he has
an occasional attack of psychosomatic flu, as do all concerned
rock and roll Bourbons. Once, when I went to Graham Nash's house
on Buena Vista Terrace in San Francisco to see David (when Graham
held some semblance of an open house), David was having a colitis
attack and had to crash on bismuth and paregoric. In my sardonic
way, I tried to get him to take an opium suppository, but he had
lost all sense of humor after fourteen hours of shit fever. He
recovered, purged, as he usually does. The lines from Cyrano de
Bergerac ran through my head: "Today the king fell ill from consuming
twelve portions of grape marmalade!"
During that visit to LA, David took me for a ride in his menacing
Ferrari Dino. It was airtight and incredibly fast - not a car,
but a magnesium mosquito, a smog cutter. The grass on the hillside
was dusty greengray, but we went throught the eucalyptus groves
around UCLA so fast that I could almost see the fragrant balms
and unguents sent down from the bows of the trees.
We go out the freeway and back to the house. Crosby takes another
nap and wakes up, sees a producer, smokes two joints of Columbian,
takes a shower, forgets to remove his watch, gets it wet, and
scrubs down carefully with Dr. Brommers Peppermint soap.
Later that night, David describes his mariners chest and the contents
thereof. As he lived both in a modest hippy posh pad in LA and
an elaborate rococonut house in Marin County, he tells me how
greatly he likes to spend money on high quality stuff. He points
out his $50 moon book by Wernher von Braun and says how interesting
it is that von Braun really wanted to go up himself and be buried
in space, and he almost did, but the American government wouldn't
ok the project. I added that it was probably because the geriatrics
rocket with foam rubber walls would be too expensive, but that
someday we might have geriatric rockets for all of us old-timers
if we can't just stay in shape long enough.
On the wall in the wooden living room is a beautiful greenish
photo of Joni Mitchell, centrally displayed between two CSN gold
records. The communication I receive from this strange little
king and his surroundings is - David's not a star. I don't treat
him as a star, and he seems to like that.
We were driving in his Mercedes 300SEL (with the telephone inside)
over to San Francisco from Marin and he waved at some chicks on
the street who recognized him at a stop sign, and I waved at them,
too, and he said, "Why did you wave?" and I said, "Oh I thought
they were waving at me."
So often the stars of our time are held in and restricted by their
fame. They bring it on themselves; they love the limelight; they
love the attention; but they do not like the restriction this
attention causes to their creativity. With David, it was possible
to make a swap-off between fame and freedom.
Day Three, Christmas 1972,
Crosby came to San Francisco a few months later, arriving in his
Ferrari to go house hunting. The little black Dino screams down
the freeway from the airport in ankle-deep rain, phantoms ooze
from the leather seats. The Ferrari eludes inspection. It eludes
highway patrol, side-band perusal, and radar. David's car, on
all fours, skips, planet skating with no sway and no drift, all
stress evenly distrubuted to all four zones of the car-center,
rear engine V-6, and we're out here looking for a house at 150
miles an hour. How ridiculous! I inquired, "Wouldn't a nice '50
Studebaker bullet-nose be more appropriate?"
He grimaced and said, "You're too fat Harrison."
Two years now, and we are still looking for a dream house for
David. It isn't too much money, but there isn't too much Marin
County that David would really appreciate, if you can dig that.
He really doesn't want to leave LA, but Garcia, Phil, and Paul
Kantner have been urging him to come up. Besides, Neil Young is
up here; has a ranch on Skyline Blvd above Redwood City. Graham
Nash has already rebuilt a house in Buena Vista Terrace in the
city, and the Grateful Dead are all in Marin.
In the rearview window mirror, the white streaks are now melting
in the distance. "That was the Corte Madera turnoff," I sez to
him.
"Well we're on our way to solvency," David says. I look puzzled.
David considers investigating Fairfax as a possible place to build
a place from scarcity, but it would take years.
I sez, "You'll always be a gypsy, David, no matter how money you
have," realizing it was going to be hard to find a castle for
King David.
He heel and toes, but misses on a do or die turn and we almost
skid out. He leaves go of the wheel and only the struts save us.
An old lady cuts into our imperial path with a '59 Plymouth station
wagon - immaculate, but very slow - King David is in a rush of
a hurry in his black, night gulping barracuda, and he hasn't got
time for slow ladies in Plymouths. He swears at her and says,
"Ah, piss-warts," then trudges on it and we torque on our way
into Mill Valley over the back hill, on the road that goes from
Larkspur to Tam Junction. Tamalpais High School, all these raised
areolas and sacral dimples, the sleeping lady mountain all over
again, and all that traction in the rain....... wwoooooeee!
My eyelids are now green spinach and my occupation is no longer
psychologist. I'm a torpedo now, with a suicide impulse. Downhill
with David, shhhit! No one needs to live in the G-factor city,
and David is no low roller; he doesn't roll skinny joints, either.
I mean, he could still smoke almost anyboys under the table, I'm
sure of that. His red Columbian oiler wasn't bad that day, but
their were no ashtrays in the Ferrari, and you can' t hear the
wind whistle by, either (it's all sealed up) and the only thing
I could hear was the little engine behind me churning about 7000
rpms, and I'm ripped, anxiety prone, and riding with a club footed
Welsh guitar player with bread. I'm convinced that since he's
made it, he doesn't care about living and is driving totally out
of control. I trust him, but we've left the ground several times
and it seems to matter less each time. Still, if it were a '59
Ford, with solenoid door buttons and Tijuana upholstery job, David
would be doing the same thing, because David, born and bred in
Santa Barbara, went through his cat burglar state like the rest
of the pachucos and is a California boy in all respects. Anyway,
we land safely, and David laughs and wonders why I haven't spit
up yet.
David Crosby curses in a strange pattern. It comes out as a form
of mystical cursing. He makes them up as he goes along like scat
and street poetry, storing a few from last week, and stringing
a few together so that noone is bored with redundancies. That
day in the Dino as we looked around for houses, he invented a
new curse that even surprised him. In fact, like all gifted people,
he surprises himself often. It was something like "piss-heat-wart-nose"
strung together. With his cursing movieola facade, Crosby sends
out vibes that people should never make him angry, because he
is a tyrant when he is angry. Unfortunately, the effective deployment
of such a facade is essential to David's well-being, since, if
they knew him, they would discover that he is no more dangerous
than the Pillsbury Dough Boy. To people that don't know him well,
he seems to teeter on the brink of anger and creative anxiety
all the time. He often says, "Sack o'shit," with roaring emphasis.
That's an old one. In this trend, the Santa Barbara/LA linguistic
patterns seem to carry over from surfer slang. Although David
doesn't use words like "bitchin" and "hot dogger," he still has
that kind of terminal mind decay which falls back on vulgate syntax.
Crosby stops at nothing to achieve a nice scatological reference.
As I egressed from his Ferrari, he said to me, "All you are is
a 76-inch tongue with a wart on one end." I laughed hilariously
Mostly he strings lots of those things together so that it may
turn out to be something like, "scumbag-horse-knuckle-shit-face"-
it's stupid but David is a Magister Ludi of silliness. And yet,
it's all complimentary, because if he don't like ya, he don't
even see ya!
David Crosby's public displays of self-criticism are never as
harsh as his public displays of criticism for others. This stands
a certain amount of "Captain Pissgums," he is also a crazy, rum
guzzler, good skipper. In spite of others, he is a perfectionist
and he does demand the ultimate from his friends, his crew, and
his musicians.
David's softer side makes up songs about nice little flowers,
whales, children's rhymes. Gothic cathedrals, and things that
could be construed as coming from a reasonably good old boy. But
David also has a politically nasty side, and he lives in the Vesica
Pisces between the two cultures. He knows it and likes it that
way. It's what he calls his "freebase" space.
David Crosby's vision of the future is not unlike Jerry Garcia's,
Phil Lesh's, or many of the other people that see themselves as
trend makers in the "Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra". Because
of his professional proclivities, David, like Owsley, demands
secrecy in most things, especially in matters of business, but
he also demands freedom of speech from the media and from the
government. David holds his elite court, invites high people to
be around him, introduces people to other people, pollinates,
mixes, and spreads creative debris in all directions, yet he can
be an outrageous authoritarian once he has fatigued himself into
dysfunction and amnesia. That's no way to treat a lady, and David
tends to go through women like waxed paper at a taffy pull.
I think David Crosby sees himself as a Renaissance court musician;
but in this case there is no king, so he, rather reluctantly,
accepts the role of Duc de Medici. He recognizes the fact that
writers, although rated lowly by Plato, must exist and should
probably hang out with musicians.
David is a Mandarin and a connoisseur of all things fine and beautiful.
This taste is inspiring and it manifests itself most clearly in
his music, but under no circumstances should David Crosby be considered
a shot in the dark; more likely, his music will live on for many
centuries as more and more people grow to understand the vast
scope of his mind. These three days with David triangulate his
personality, but because of his reclusiveness, a full picture
is impossible, and would, like David, be ridiculous. I think it
was James Joyce who said, "Musicians with power are a high danger,
second only to writers and physicians.
|
|
