Springfield Starship

More Oldies

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or at least the concert stages) I was a misbehaving teenager attending acid rock shows in the Springfield area armed with a beautiful topshelf Yashica camera I got for a pittance from a B&E artist I knew (as in Breaking and Entering). In a bit of karmic justice, the camera was eventually stolen from me. Anyway, in that distant era they would let you bring cameras into concerts, these being the days before every moment of a rock and roll show became a copyrighted experience that no one can capture in any form unless somebody is being paid a royalty.

So I took a bunch of pictures at a lot of shows and put them in a photo album. Then in the course of relocating hither and yon somewhere along the way I thought I lost it. I always hoped it would turn up someday, but frankly I had no real expectation that it would. Then one day when I was going through some of the stuff in my late Mom's cellar, lo and behold there it was, the book of photos along with some other local music memoriabilia such as the Martian Highway flyer reproduced below.

Leave it to dear old Mom to always save the stuff I was careless about. As for Martian Highway, it was a popular local party band fronted by a cool spade named Carl Mayfield.

The following are pictures of the Jefferson Starship at the Springfield Civic Center, exact date unknown, but it was sometime in the late 70's. The earliest incarnations of the Jefferson Starship were more in the style of the revolutionary Airplane than the commercialized Top 40 hit machine they later became. My main memory of this show is how about a week before the concert, the aforementioned madman Carl Mayfield had some weird LSD-induced vision that the phrase "Bloated Oat a Goat Will Float," whose specific meaning he was never quite able to explain, must somehow be spread to the multitudes assembled and particularly to the Starship itself.

So he went about making stickers, signs, balloons and anything else he could think of to disperse to the crowd which had that statement (among other things) written on them. I think all eight thousand people who attended that show encountered that phrase multiple times; at the very least they heard it once when Grace Slick picked up something with the phrase written on it that was thrown on stage and asked, "Bloated oat a goat will float? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Ah Grace, just another one of the cosmic mysteries that will never be solved!

Grace encountering a bloated oat.



Spacey Gracie the Acid Queen



The voice that launched a thousand trips.



Paul Kantner



Craig Chaquico and Kantner. 

The late Pine Pointer "Fuji" Cardinal (center) and crew at the concert. His real first name was Dave, and he was best known as a Boston Road Cumberland Farms cashier who also sold weed that he kept hidden behind the counter. The place sold more lids than it did gallons of milk. He died in a highway accident about five years ago.

Boston Road Car Caper

 



Want even more Springfield oldies? Okay, here's a funny true life story my friend Jordan Williams (above right) sent me in an email years ago. 

It all began when I stopped by that used car lot next to St. Michael's cemetary in Pine Point, Springfield:



At the time I was searching for a replacement for the RX-7. As I drove down Boston Road in Springfield at around 10 PM, I spotted a vehicle on the Pine Point lot that I thought might be the ticket. I pulled up onto the sidewalk in order to get out of the way of traffic and got out to check out the cars. I'm in the habit of leaving the car running for brief stops like this one for fear that the intermittent starting problem I've been having might arise once again. This despite having invested $542 during the prior week because of a bad door, a major tune-up and that starting situation.

A couple of minutes into the tire kicking, I noticed a guy walking down the street on the other side who seemed to be making an effort to get my attention. Waving his arms and yelling some sort of gibberish. I knew I didn't know him and just sort of waved him off. Well naturally he stumbled over to talk to me - in Spanish. I said "No espanol," and just hoped he would go away. He spoke English just fine though, and offering his hand in friendship his first sentence was this: "My name is Manuel, I am Puerto Rican, and I see, my friend, that you are looking for a car. This is a very good business - cars. It so happens that I will be receiving twenty three thousand dollars very soon because of this injury (points to unmarked portions of one arm and one leg) and I would like to invest in such a car business. Me and you can be partners. What do you think? Would you like to be with me in the car business?"

Hmm. I sized up my potential new business partner. On the plus side he appeared to be about 40, in good shape, bilingual and would soon have many thousands of dollars. On the minus he was shirtless, drunk, stoned, crazy and dirty. It was a close call and one that, sadly, went against poor Manuel. I said "Well, that is certainly something to think about." But I believe that I saw in Manuel's eyes a sadness. A sadness that said "I do not believe you want to be partners with Manuel."

He then informed me that he was late to work and asked if I would give him a ride. I declined. He then asked me for a dollar. "Sorry Manuel, all tapped out." "How about 50 cents?" "No can do." And the litany began again, starting with a ride, moving to a dollar and ending with 50 cents. No. No. No. And again. And again. He was also getting more belligerant. By now I was simply ignoring him and just looking at cars. He wouldn't leave though and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I drifted away in the opposite direction that he'd eventually leave. It worked. He finally walked away.

I was now about 50 yards from my car. Manny was gone. Wrong. A few minutes later I realized that Manuel had doubled back, screened from me by a house, and suddenly reemerged near my car. He screamed out the question "50 cents man?" It was all crystal clear now. I shook my pockets wishing I had a couple of quarters. Nothing. "No Manuel . . . NO!" I hollerd. But I watched in horror as he jumped into the Mazda and, as I screamed "No, Manny don't do it!" Manuel floored it, bouncing off the road as he left the sidewalk onto the pavement and laying a fair amount of rubber. The Mazda was gone.

Or was it? Coincidence, or perhaps destiny, can be a remarkable thing though and a Springfield police cruiser came around the corner just moments after Manuel's betrayal. I ran into the street arms flailing away. The cruiser swerved slightly to avoid me and though I noticed the lone officer looking curiously into the rear view mirror, there was no change in speed as he crested and then disappeared over the same hill as Manuel. Indeed - the Mazda was truly gone.

12 hours later I was on my way to the Poconos and wouldn't get a police update until the next night: "Mr. Williams…that car is still stolen."

Actually, I never saw it again.

 

Around Amherst

If you don't offer this you can't stay in business. 

The Jolly Rogers atop a UMass partyhouse.

I stopped in at Amherst's historic West Cemetery.

 



I wanted to check in on Miss Emily Dickinson.

Status Update: Still dead.

Some of the stones have been damaged by vandals.

 



If the vandals don't get you, time will. 

Nothing lasts.

False Promise

Can the Government Save Any Money?

 



I'm shocked that I continue to hear people say on TV and in the papers that one of the main goals of the so-called health care reform efforts in Congress is to control spending. Huh? When the hell has that ever happened? On the contrary I strain in vain to think of any area in which the government getting involved in providing any service has resulted in cost savings.

If anything, government involvement is an invitation to waste and fraud. If Congress were really interested in controlling costs, they would not model their program, as they have, on what increasingly appears to be the failing model of universal health care here in Massachusetts. Reason columnist Jacob Sullivan explains:

Since 2006, Michael Cannon notes in a recent Cato Institute paper, health insurance premiums in Massachusetts have risen by 8 percent to 12 percent a year, almost double the national average. During the same period, total medical spending has increased by 28 percent. The cost of subsidizing coverage through the state’s Commonwealth Care program is expected to hit $880 million next year, 20 percent more than originally projected.

Second, despite stricter penalties, Massachusetts seems to be experiencing adverse selection. Cannon notes that, while the share of residents without insurance has shrunk from about 10 percent to about 5 percent, the proportion of uninsured people in the 18-to-25 age group has increased from 30 percent to 35 percent, indicating that “the young (and presumably more healthy) are less likely to comply with the mandate.”

Third, requiring people to buy insurance entails defining the minimum level of coverage, which necessarily makes insurance more expensive than it would otherwise be. In effect, the government prohibits the cheapest insurance plans, the ones with the highest deductibles and the least generous benefits.

The upshot is a phenomenon we have seen many times before: Instead of protecting us from big business, big government buys it off with our money.

 

Canadian High

With Grace Slick in poor health the Jefferson Starship is today primarily a Paul Kantner solo band. Currently touring Canada, a rev,iew from a Canadian paper yesterday describes the 68 year old Kantner as still overseeing a realm of spacy chaos. 

Kantner sang and played mostly rhythm guitar. Here’s one dude who’s still living the dream. He spoke several times on the quality of Vancouver Island drugs, which apparently, pale to his usual toot.

“Some of the stuff I had from your local dispensary is pretty good,” declared Kantner sagely. “But it’s not as good as San Francisco.”


Hadley in the Rain

Today is another one of those gloomy, wet New England fall days. On the bus into Amherst this morning I took some pictures through the rain streaked windows of the farm fields of Hadley. Sometimes I captured a nice effect. 

Other times I didn't. Those blurry light and dark blobs on the grass are white ducks and black hens.

This area is so rural you need a sign just to warn you of an approaching sign. 

All the farmer's fields are dead, patiently waiting until next spring to be reborn. 

Growth, harvest and then rebirth, the unchanging cycle of hundreds of years. 

Hot Fuckin Tuna

Assorted Valley Tuna Shit

 



Back around 1968, if you were to have asked serious rock fans who the best three guitar players were, you would probably hear most suggest Jimi Hendrix (many would still say that today) Eric Clapton (a bigger star today than he was then) and probably a third name far less well known today, Jorma Kaukonen of the Jefferson Airplane.

In their heyday Jefferson Airplane was dominated by its three prolific singer songwriters, Grace Slick, Marty Balin and Paul Kantner, who mostly overshadowed the extraordinarily creative and complex lead guitar playing of Kaukonen and the band's bass player Jack Casady. But if you listen to the Airplane today, the 60's "Up Against the Wall" credo of the Slick/Balin/Kantner axis often sounds dated, while Kaukonen and Cassady's wonderful guitar playing has passed the test of time beautifully. Kaukonen and Casady quit the Airplane when the band began to morph into the commercial hit-machine Starship, voluntarily exiling themselves to their side project Hot Tuna, whom Rolling Stone magazine once called "America's longest lived cult band."

Hot Tuna never had any hit records and never wanted any. Kaukonen rejected the record industry's star-making machinery, touring and recording only when he felt like it and strictly on his own terms. So while tragedy transformed Hendrix into a permanent icon, forever frozen at his peak by death; and Clapton aggressively pursued and obtained mainstream megastardom, Kaukonen remained more on the fringes of the music industry. 

Yet, Hot Tuna won through constant touring a hard-earned reputation as one of the ultimate guitar bands, despite never being widely recognized by the general public. Kaukonen always had a following here in the Valley however, performing at places like the Iron Horse and the old Quonset Hut on Rte. 9. Hot Tuna played in Springfield several times, most memorably at the Civic Center with Bob Weir and at the Paramount with the Band and Springfield native Taj Mahal.

But no one as good as Jorma Kaukonen could remain underground forever, and in fact a Jorma revival is now underway, led by a new generation delighted to rediscover what an older generation forgot. Now all of Jorma's old solo albums, most of which have never been available on CD, are finally being re-released in order to blow the minds of modern listeners.

The latest re-release is 1974's QUAH, which was Jorma's first solo effort following the crash of the Jefferson Airplane. It is one the few records Jorma made without Jack Casady, featuring instead the late San Francisco folk legend Tom Hobson. It also includes wonderfully erzatz album cover art by Jorma's late wife, psychedelic poster artist Margareta.

The oddness of the album cover art matches the eclectic music of the record itself. The opening song "Genesis" is as fine an acoustic love ballad you could want and it's worth buying the CD for that song alone.

But there is so, so much more. The rest of the record is an amazing blend of styles and sounds ranging from the primal blues of Rev. Gary Davis covers to stoner songs like "Flying Clouds" and "Hamar Promenade," to the outright daffy guitar showpiece "Sweet Hawaiian Sunshine." There are also previously unreleased songs from the original recording sessions, including an instrumental that later appeared with lyrics on Hot Tuna's The Phosphorescent Rat and a deeply weird but profound cowboy tune called "Barrier." There is even an unintentionally corny hidden track that I'll let you discover for yourself.

No date for the following photos of Hot Tuna, but I do know that they were taken at the Music Inn in Lenox in the mid-70's. I kid you not, but the show was so loud that the surrounding farmers complained in the paper that the next day their cows wouldn't give milk. Guess cows don't like Hot Tuna. I admit it was a show that probably damaged my hearing, but if so it was worth it. I don't think I've ever had as much fun at a concert since.

 

 


Here's an old review of a concert I went to in the year 2000 where Hot Tuna was the back-up band for the Allman Brothers.



Damn, I was hoping to produce for you a big ol’ concert review, but frankly I’m not much prepared to write it. The truth is I really didn’t act much like a music reviewer at this concert. I talked to people, walked around and at times just plain ignored what was happening on stage. Therefore the best I can do is offer you these handful of observations, and I hope you can get something out of that.

I’m no expert on these things, but security in the parking lot seemed tighter than it needed to be.

I thought there might be a lot of drunken yahoos running around, but the vibe was more Grateful Dead than Molly Hatchet.

Shame on the people who lingered outside and missed Hot Tuna.

Hot Tuna’s Mike Falzarano is a good vocalist, but personally I prefer that all songs be sung by Jorma.

The Meadows is a great place to see shows, even if you have lawn seats. God bless the giant overhead TV screen. Sound quality was also excellent.

Unfortunately, the person running the TV seemed not to know what to show in relation to what was happening on stage. Sometimes the camera was on drummers during a guitar solo or similar mismatch of image and sound.

Hate to say it, but the absence of Dicky Betts was not as profoundly felt as you might have expected.

When did the Allman Brothers get so psychedelic? That was not their original image. A band for bikers maybe, or for good ol’ boys for sure, but flower power acid heads? No, that's something new.

"Whipping Post" was an obvious and perfect encore.

Therefore, let me close by simply saying that a good time appeared to be had by all.

Below is a ticket stub from a very, very loud show in Springfield, Massachusetts. I actually feared afterwards that I had damaged my hearing, but it returned to normal the next day.

Did you know there is a plant called Hot Tuna?

Houttuynia is a plant that tastes nothing like hot tuna; the botanical name merely resembles the words "hot tuna." It's a lot easier to remember and say than houttuynia.

Although hot tuna doesn't taste like hot tuna, it is, in fact, edible. The plant is native from Japan down to Java, and across Asia to Nepal, and people in those regions eat the boiled leaves or use them as flavoring. Some people find the flavor to be citrus-y; to others, it is more reminiscent of cheap perfume laced with diesel fuel.

Some cautions must be exercised in planting hot tuna. The plant can be invasive. It spreads vigorously by underground suckers, and although growing only about a half a foot high, it can climb over and engulf a dwarf shrub. Also, hot tuna's wild colors would not be welcome everywhere -- it's not a visually sedate plant.

With these two cautions in mind, you might want to give hot tuna a try, mostly for its looks and maybe even to eat. 

 Here's a taste of the musical Hot Tuna.

This is the mugshot of a woman arrested this week in Springfield for drug dealing.

Signs

Somebody got obscene with this crosswalk sign in Northampton.

MassBike had a table set up this morning at the Hamp Farmer's Market.

I'm stunned by the closing of the Aurora Borealis store in downtown Hamp.

Thus the Obama Depression claims another victim. Rolando's in downtown Amherst has been closed for some time. 

But I notice that inside it still has this poster hanging up of what I assume is an imaginary farm for intoxicated bovines. 

 

Of course still open is the nearby Pub, which boasts of being open since 1968.

Despite its 60's pedigree, The Pub has always had the reputation of being a rowdy fratboy bar. Here signs of peace in several languages hang beneath the gay pride flag at Amherst's Unitarian Church.

At Amherst's Newbury Comix a poster advertizes the new Dinosaur Jr. CD in the band's hometown.

Haymarket Scenes

A Cape Cod Grateful Dead shirt in Northampton's Haymarket Cafe yesterday.

Michael on the Haymarket tip jar.

True love.

A Grave in Pine Point

In Saint Michaels.

Last night's snow and ice storm was really a hardship for my Big Green friend at Amherst College, since he never wears anything but a toga. 

Downtown Amherst was transformed into an icy wonderland, quite beautiful if you were looking at it through a window.

However, if you were outdoors walking around it wasn't so nice. What a winter - repetitive snow and ice storms interrupted only by arctic blasts!

Anyway, in Saint Michael's Cemetery in ol' Pine Point there stands a grave that is very meaningful in my family history. It is located near this area of statues that really frightened me when I was a kid. As a little boy, I remember I had nightmares about the statues coming alive!

The stone is above the grave of John Devine, who died tragically in 1911. Here is the article on the terrible event as it appeared in the Springfield newspaper. 

John M. Devine, 43, 438 State Street, died in Mercy Hospital this morning at 3 o'clock as the result of injuries received yesterday morning when he plunged his right arm through the glass in a door at his home. The sharp glass severed an artery, and Devine lost a large quantity of blood before he was removed to the hospital. But little hope was entertained of his recovery and he sank gradually until the end.

Yesterday morning Devine arose in perfect health to go to his work on a plumbing job, but while about to leave the bedroom to go to the washroom he tripped and fell on a loose piece of straw matting and in an effort to steady himself plunged his arm through the glass. He leaves a widow and seven children totally unprovided for.

When visited by a reporter for The Daily News this morning the family seemed unable to realize that the husband and father is dead. The eldest son, James A. Devine, 18, seemed the only one to appreciate the loss that the family has sustained, and he expressed the idea of digging in at any kind of work to support his mother and the remainder of the family.

Besides his widow, Mr. Devine leaves seven children, Raymond J., Helen E., Frances, Gervase, Bertrand, John E. and James A., two brothers, Joseph of Buffalo, N.Y., and James of Russell, and two sisters, Mrs. P.J. Griffin and Miss Elizabeth Devine, both of Willimansett. 

The article is wrong about my relative's name, his middle initial being R and not M as reported (see above). Certain details not included in the article have been handed down, such as that he was taken to the hospital by a passing horse and wagon. If you consider the distance from State Street to Mercy hospital, and the speed with which one can transverse it by horse, then it it easy to understand how he bled to death.

I have long searched in vain for a photograph of the building where the tragedy occurred. This picture of the location taken in 1939 shows that the building had by that time been torn down and replaced by a one story commercial structure which itself has since been torn down. The address is currently a parking lot.

 

Also, I was often told when growing up that the newspaper story is simply a cover version my family made-up for the press. In reality, on the day of the accident John Devine was falling down drunk. A good clue as to the true nature of the mishap is the fact that it occurred around 3 in the morning. In any case, the part about being left in "destitute circumstances" was certainly true. It took a whole generation for my family to recover from the desperate poverty they fell into because of that terrible tragedy.

With the students gone for winter break, the UMass maintenance staff has the opportunity to do things that are not practical to do during the semester, such as polishing the floor of the ballroom to a glassy finish. 

 

This is a Jefferson Starship video from 1976.

PERRO Surfaces

The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra.

 



A great lost masterpiece of musical history is finally surfacing on YouTube.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's there was a great deal of collaboration among various southern California rock groups that included Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and assorted solo artists such as Joni Mitchell. Because of contractual problems based on the fact that most of the artists were on different labels, plus the break-up or personnel changes in many of these groups and the just plain passage of time combined to cause the tapes of those sessions to disappear.

Here is an abridged version of an already abridged version of The Planet Earth Orchestra sessions and how they were rediscovered as told by session witnesses Bill Parry, Steve Rowland, and Steven Barncard:

On August 23, 1991 a copy of the several PERRO reels were compiled onto a DT 120 DAT on request by Paul Kantner to Graham Nash (since the tapes where kept in the latter's vault) for a copy.

When the Crosby, Stills & Nash box-set was being put together, some mystery reels were found.

All of the CSNY tape collection was brought in to one place for the first time, including personal collections of Barncard, Joel Bernstein, Nash and Stills. One of the PERRO tapes had a small pipe with weed in it and somebody smoked it! It was still good.

The material on the PERRO tapes was very interesting, but had nothing to do with CSNY. There were 4 reels of 2 track mixes made in 1971 during the sessions (obviously there is more that has never been mixed). The tapes were put into storage in Nash's vault. 

Paul called Nash in 1992 and requested DATs of those tapes. This was the first time they had been outside of the CSNY organization. They were copied at A&M Post Production audio and my personal DAT was made at that time.

The roots of PER&RO go back a lot further than 1971. 1 guess it had its inception in the early years of the '60s (prior to the Airplane, the Byrds et al) when Kantner, Crosby and Freiberg used to hang out, play music, get high and rap together around Venice Beach. That was the initial bond, the start of it all.

Later, when they were in bands of their own, there were occasional points of interaction - like Jerry Garcia sitting in on the 'Surrealistic Pillow' sessions, like Crosby giving "Triad" to the Airplane when he couldn't get the Byrds to record it, like Kantner, Crosby and Stills writing "Wooden Ships".

Then, as the '60s drew to a close, two sets of circumstances combined to bring the Planet Earth Rock And Roll Dream a whole lot nearer. One was the opening of Wally Heider's studio in San Francisco - because now the local SF musicians (Airplane, Quicksilver, Dead) had a place on their doorstep where they could record. This gave them freedom from the corporate studios to record and produce as they saw fit, to come and go more or less as they pleased and to invite the musical neighborhood in if they chose. (It hadn't been so easy when they were holed up at RCA's or Warner's studios in Hollywood.) The other catalyst was the state of flux that a lot of bands were falling into by 1969/1970, for Crosby had left the Byrds, the Airplane was a less cohesive force with Dryden out and Hot Tuna splitting off, and Dino Valenti's arrival had unsettled Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Things had come pretty much full circle by the end of the decade. Kantner was again hanging out with Crosby (quite often on the latter's yacht) and with David Freiberg -and, when Paul came to assemble musicians to record 'Blows Against The Empire', it wasn't just to his Airplane cohorts that he turned but also to Crosby and Garcia and even Graham Nash - who'd just bought a house in Frisco and ended up producing the whole second side of the 'Blows Against the Empire' album at Heider's studio. 'Blows..." was the first album by that collection of musicians whom Paul liked to term the Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra.

The fact that he billed the album as being by Jefferson Starship shouldn't mislead anyone. Kantner, Crosby, Slick, Freiberg, Nash, Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Phil Lesh, Jack Casady, Bill Kreutzmann, Micky Hart - these people were the Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra, supporting each other on key projects.

As Grace Slick recalls, "These sessions were like 'Uh, do you wanna play guitar on this one?' 'No, man, I have to go to the bathroom.' 'Okay, David, you wanna play?' 'Sure'. Whoever felt like doing something did it. Parts interchanged, people interchanged."

Graham Nash says "They asked me my opinion and I just jumped right in. Grace, Paul, David - they let me do whatever I heard. I was searching for this kind of environment when I came to America and when I was mixing in the studio our imaginations were running rampant. We were creating virtual kingdoms with music."

The second such PER&RO project was David Crosby's debut solo album, 'If I Could Only Remember My Name', which features all of the above-mentioned Planet Earthers plus the likes of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Greg Rolie and Mike Shrieve.

But enough of this preamble, and on to the tapes in question. They come from sessions at Wally Heider's San Francisco studios in 1971. Crosby had sailed his boat up to Sausalito harbor. Nash was resident in the Haight. Kantner and Slick had moved out to Bolinas and the Dead were in Mill Valley but they would all head for Wally's of an evening to work on PER&RO songs. Some of these things ended up on Crosby's solo, a couple on Garcia's solo, one on Grace's album, one on Paul's 1983 'Planet Earth...' album - and some have never seen the light of day....

 



The album released in 1983 (above) is NOT the material referred to here, but songs recorded in '83 that in some cases drew on material from the 1970's sessions but was not an attempt to re-create them.

What has now surfaced on YouTube in 2008 is a 1971 Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady composition that at points resembles an instrumental that later appeared on the Jefferson Airplane album Bark. 

Here's some background.

"Wild Turkey" (4' 20")(AKA "Leather Winged Bat"): An interesting improvisation with Jorma and Jack at the controls, this may or may not be an early styling of what became the dynamic duo's "Bark" instrumental. It certainly starts off that way, with Kaukonen roaring out some aggressive electric noise and Casady on a familiar rumble. But soon it settles into something much gentler, employing a more reflective chord progression. Jorma's playing rises and falls in a fairly relaxed manner - until the finale, when he stirs it back towards the "Turkey" structure with some more combative lead guitar. It could well be that Jack and Jorma decided the split-mood approach didn't work and restructured the number as the wholly aggressive strut we encountered on 'Bark'. Whatever, it's a nicely balanced piece and a pleasure to hear.

I agree.



It is wonderful to see stuff from these legendary long lost sessions becoming available at last, but when can we get to hear the whole thing? May it be soon!

In some modern news from the same scene, here's Paul Kantner and his son Alexander, who sometimes appears as bass player with his Dad's band Jefferson Starship. 

Today Jefferson Starship is essentially a Kantner solo band, but people from the band's past line-ups pop in and out, so you never know who will appear on stage.

Here is a picture of the Amherst Survival Center as it looks today.



This is a picture I found of what the building looked like 128 years ago in 1880 when it was a school.



When I was a crack addict I would not spend any money on food. All of my money had to be spent on drugs. Such behavior is common among crack addicts, research has shown:

Cocaine is the most addictive substance known, according to animal researchers, who have observed that animals ranging from mice to monkeys self-administer cocaine faster than any other drug and will continue until they die. Cocaine addiction in humans develops faster than addiction to opiates, and crack cocaine addiction is particularly rapid.

Even if you don't die from crack, you can suffer brain damage from malnutrition because you don't eat. I didn't suffer brain damage (not too much anyway) because of the free meals I got at the Amherst Survival Center. Every day I would go there to their free lunch, where they serve very nutritious hot meals, and I credit the food I ate there as well as the food I took home which they give away, with keeping me from damaging my brain and body more than I did.

Today I volunteer at the Amherst Survival Center. Here I am serving food.

I like the karma of volunteering there. People are poor for many reasons, but one of the most common is drug and alcohol abuse. Some of the people I see everyday remind me of myself and how I used to be - and what I will be again if I don't stick to the straight and narrow. I used to come needing help, but now I am the helper. I don't want to take that trip from helped to helper again, and frankly, I don't think I could do it again. If I ever go down again, I think I'll probably go down for good. Working at the Amherst Survival Center helps remind me of that.

At the Survival Center there is a free store. You can go in and take anything off the shelf you want without having to pay for it. The concept behind that reminds me of a line from a wise and funny poem by Allen Ginsberg called America. Here's the part of that poem leading to that line:

America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?

Ginsberg should be alive today so that he could come to the Amherst Survival Center, where he could see his dream has come true of a store where you can buy things with nothing but your looks, good or otherwise.

Or at least that is how it originally was. Now there are some restrictions on what you can take. I work in the kitchen, but I've heard stories about why those restrictions became necessary. I heard about the people that came in and took all of the denim in the store off the racks every day. I heard about the people that took all the housewares off the shelf, leaving nothing for anyone else. I heard about the people who came with big sacks which they filled with everything in sight.

The staff wondered why people were doing stuff like that. They discovered that there was a place that paid for denim by the pound. They discovered that the housewares were making appearances at yard sales with price tags on them. They discovered that people from Springfield were coming up and filling their sacks to take things back to that city.

It is important to stress that 99% of the people who came to the Survival Center free store did not pull scams of these types. Yet it soon became apparent that some restrictions had to be put on how much people could take, or that small number of scammers would ruin everything for everyone else. So now when someone is seen to be taking too much, they are politely told to put some of it back.

It's no big deal, but it is still a shame to realize that the original concept of the totally free store as envisioned in Ginsberg's poem wasn't really practical in practice. Making a store totally free was pretty cool, indeed it was practically a miracle! But changing human nature, abolishing human greed, well that was a miracle that not even the Amherst Survival Center could pull off.