tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38806152011-04-22T00:16:41.839-04:00Applestock Nation"If you can remember the '60s...you weren't there." –Ken KeseyBill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger151100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-945180082003-05-17T21:24:00.001-04:002008-12-11T22:27:23.523-05:00Full disclosure: I lived these events. I think.You of a certain age will recall: in 1966 word was spreading of new wonders, new charismatic creatures, and particularly an authentic American guru--a blessed hick from Arkansas named Captain Jim, who preached unfettered love, LSD, and a new life-ethic based on, of all things, FUN. Fun was the sole and final reason we were here, he taught. Fun was Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-911433502003-03-21T15:33:00.000-05:002003-03-23T09:13:51.000-05:00[Note: today I'm posting this tidbit, from chapter 32, "Sons of Applestock," because it reminds me of the Administration on the eve of battle.]
Chief Hadley shifted in his chair and made sure his various chains rattled and his gun came into view. “Look here, now, nobody’s going to kill nobody, okay—let’s get that straight right now.”
The boys sagged a bit.
“But buck up—Zorro never had toBill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-899663982003-03-01T15:37:00.000-05:002003-03-02T20:39:17.000-05:00 “That take, man. . . pure magic,” whispers Captain Jim in the silence that swirls around the dying of the final chord. “What a song you wrote, brother!”
Ray’s head keeps half-revolving and resetting itself. How long has he been in this place? Never mind, never mind, forget it—clock time is irrelevent, anyway. Pure flow has taken over, and Ray has just done the most amazing thing—recorded Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-878605112003-01-22T16:22:00.000-05:002003-01-27T22:22:25.000-05:00Tap, tap, tap. Come on in, man.
Becky sees right away what we’ve got here, inside the bus. A little traveling commune. Half-a-dozen scrawny kids smoking pot and drinking beer. One of them, a girl, is tripping heavily—her eyes a bit off center and her arms raised and undulating like seaweed. It’s hot inside and the kids have stripped off their clothes.
In the center of this downbeat Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-877620252003-01-20T22:14:00.000-05:002003-02-17T12:10:42.000-05:00Ray stirs at first light, swims to the surface of his dream, and breaks through it to behold his. . . wife.
Oh, god, the wedding!
Oh, god, what has he done?
He stares hard at his milk-skinned little spouse, snoozing rhythmically beside him. “My bride,” he croaks. A runaway surge of graveyard hopelessness bursts forth in the form of a giggle.
Married to this. . . chipmunk of a girl.
Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-870098422003-01-06T10:44:00.000-05:002003-01-23T16:38:56.000-05:00Captain Jim is Ray’s new role model, warts and all. Even seeing him at the window that night, the masturbating god—even that hasn’t turned Ray away from him. It’s produced the opposite effect, humanizing and magnifying the Sacred Goat, in a sacrimental way, as if part of Jim’s mission as "god," small-g, is to lend dignity to the twisted secrets of humanity by acting them out, gloriously or Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-865607142002-12-26T16:19:00.000-05:002002-12-26T17:11:45.000-05:00Ray has decided to go light on Christmas this year.
Mother is off tooting around the Carribean. Fine. So he will just stay put, won't angle to be invited anywhere. No tree, no caroling, no solitary Yuletide dinner at Howard Johnson's. Let Miss Basnight lure him down to the parlor for a ritual cup of eggnog and be done with it.
And so Christmas comes and goes. Ray stays out of public view and Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-865314642002-12-25T20:58:00.000-05:002002-12-29T21:33:43.000-05:00[To my dear readers:
Well, folks. . . it does seem that inclement weather, holiday wear & tear, "bad habits," and lingering bouts of CCSFS (Chronic Culture Shock Fatigue Syndrome) have temporarily swamped me and my elves here at Applestock '66.
Apologies galore to the faithful & thanks for the cards and letters & even the pissed-off e-mails. I've triple-searched for an appropriate holiday post Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-856806172002-12-08T10:25:00.000-05:002002-12-09T21:08:27.000-05:00Police Chief Hadley cut a new halfway notch in his belt and it seemed to be working okay--the idea being the belt would hold up his stomach without crimping him so tight as to make it spill over and get in the way of business.
Sitting outside the Bell Sisters' Bakery in his patrol car, munching a Danish, Hadley had that uneasy feeling that years of law enforcement had taught him to respect: Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-853172482002-11-30T23:11:00.000-05:002002-12-09T21:07:46.000-05:00There's nothing like a congregation of real acid-heads to change the world, is there? By sounding a chord, singing a song, thinking a thought.
By starting our own nation. . . .
Yes, I was at Woodstock--though in recent years it has become a cliche to make that claim. I had nothing else to do at that point, being three years out of a job. My severance package from Applestock was generous enough Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-851665142002-11-27T11:16:00.000-05:002002-12-01T17:13:51.000-05:00Melanie Witherspoon ran the tips of her fingers along the creamy ivory keyboard of her Steinway grand. Black, white, black, white—the abacus of her life—so elemental yet so mysterious, the piano. Like an artifact from some advanced civilization, left on earth for only a few elite mortals to decode and master.
Play, elite mortal!
Her hands assumed their positions, fingers like hungry legs Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-848224532002-11-20T12:12:00.000-05:002002-12-01T17:15:23.000-05:00riffles: welcome & welcome & welcome to applestock and forgive please this descent upon you in the moment of your arrival but there is much to impart, dire warnings, it might be said & might also be said forewarned is forearmed is unharmed. In pursuit of such my wife & i extend invitation to drinks & dinner upon yr arrival. casual. no need to change, no need to confirm, simply arrive. we live Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-845672032002-11-15T02:41:00.000-05:002002-12-12T12:59:43.000-05:00The music starts and Ray is so thrilled he’s close to wetting his pants. Gilbert was absolutely right: this Grateful Dead crew is the perfect headliner to open the Festival. There’s not a thing you can say, or think, or imagine that even begins to describe the energy that rolls forth again and again, like waves of St. Elmo’s fire, over the lifted faces and hands of the crowd—they now number in Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-845274662002-11-14T10:03:00.000-05:002002-11-14T22:28:57.000-05:00Even as a kid, Ray sensed something momentous happening outside the polite world. Whatever it was lay entirely beyond the ken of social bullies like Mother or snotty diaper intellectuals like Peter J. Upjohn. At Oberlin (the non-Ivy compromise he and his parents agreed upon), Ray really tried to swear off low culture. But the more he listened to Brahms’ Requiem or The Magic Flute, the more he Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3880615.post-842655582002-11-09T00:22:00.000-05:002002-11-14T20:54:37.000-05:00At dinner, Houdini hatched a plan. Form an armed caravan—Bob-bob first, on his Harley, then Ray's Cherokee, then the Kickin’ Machine—and rumble down the hill, straight through "Rube City," firing Bob-bob's shotgun in the air if there was any weird shit from the rubes.
Marnie, who was from rube stock herself, took a hard line: "Why fire in the air?" she said. "Real force is the only thing the Bill Hendersonnoreply@blogger.com