Monday, January 17

Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--Potter said one time he went into the Highway Bar, across from the paper mill, on LSD, and everybody in there had an aura around his head, giving off vibes with bad intentions on them.

The fishermen hated the airmen from the base who hated the millwrights from the paper mill who hated the fishermen.

It wasn't a Summer of Love in the Highway Bar. It was like when the motorcycle crazies started dealing crank and horse where previously hippies had smoked grass and worn tie-died T-shirts with flowers in their hair, and Richard Brautigan sold his self-published books on the street.

When Brew went to HarvestFest, in Atlanta, as a paparazzo, and jam band music critic, and took a picture of the vendor booths, there was a mean aura in the sky, over the booths, and the vendors were suspicious of the musicians who were suspicious or the rock music critics who were suspicious of the vendors. Far out, man. I'm a massage therapist.

Yea. But why ain't you a yogi?

Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--When Brew lined up the health care delivery system provider continuum, it looked like this:

A physician prescribed drugs, and drugs for side-effects of drugs. Rather than asking a patient to take charge of his own health. The patient was a black box, to him. He was interested in metrics, not anecdotal evidence. Readings on a graph.

An osteopath was as rigorously trained as a physician, but believed in the laying on of hands. Manipulation. He prescribed drugs, but he also believed in adjustments to joints.

A chiropractor was less well-trained, and couldn't prescribe drugs, so he would prescribe over-the-counter drugs, and vitamins from the health food store. He adjusted spines, but the theory behind it was unscientific. How could a subluxation cause infection, or a neoplasm. Contagious diseases.

Massage therapists were usually holistic, and believed in health foods, and stretching. Exercise. Aromatherapy, music, incense. Oils.

A yogi studied with a guru who encouraged him to be in touch with his own body, to exercise and breathe and meditate. There was a spiritual component. Integration. Do it yourself.

The yogi eventually became self-sufficient, not dependent on someone else's ministrations.

Physician, heal thyself.

If you applied that to writers, at one end were the writing program graduates and at the other end were vernacular writers. Raw, intuitive, self-taught.

BREW'S NEWS was the kind of book such a man would write.

It wasn't an accident. It was by design.

He had a photograph to prove it. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--When Brew worked at the factory in Atlanta he was on the Diversity Council.

A motion was made to change the name of Black History Month to African-American Heritage Month. One African-American complained that they gave blacks the shortest month, February, but Brew pointed out that Black History Month was actually six weeks long, because it started on Martin Luther King Day, in the middle of January.

That went over like a turd in the punchbowl.

Some African-American members of the Diversity Council were sensitive about Martin Luther King Day, because it was an optional holiday, not a mandatory holiday, at the factory.

Brew didn't feel free to point out that many crackers didn't consider it a holiday at all, and considered Dr. King a plagiarist and an adulterer. It might hurt somebody's feelings.

Mind you, black people didn't hesitate to call white people crackers, and some of them called Martin Luther King Day Martin Luther Coon Day. Called African-Americans niggers.

That was entre nous. You can't do it. You racist you.

Brew didn't do it.

He'd call them whatever they insisted on being called. Today.

A rose is a rose.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--One time at IBM, Brew went to Ethnic Heritage Day as a Florida cracker.

He wore his traditional dress, bib overalls, a feed-sack shirt, red horsehide brogans, and a jipijapa hat, and brought a traditional dish, a banana pudding with a yard-egg meringue he made himself.

Was he supposed to be ashamed of being a cracker?

The WPA Guide to Florida says the crackers in the Panhandle, and in L. A, Lower Alabama, shared many similarities with poor blacks, in the areas of folklore, music, art, dependence on the soil, or the sea, religiosity, a macabre, gallows humor about the bossman, Captain Charley, cuisine, and dress.

Brew didn't look like a white man dressed up as a black man, he looked like a solid gold peckerwood.

What's the word?
Thunderbird.
What's the price?
Thirty twice.
Who drink the most?
Colored folks.
Who wish they could?
Peckerwood.

White port and lemon juice (WPLJ).

Shake-em-up.

Was Brenda country?

She wore flour sack drawers so long she had dumplings in her crack.

Who would you rather have on the Diversity Council? Me, or Captain Charlie?

We got to get together, here, brother. Not fight with each other.

I ain't Captain Charley.

"WPLJ." Covered by Frank Zappa on his Burnt Weeny Sandwich lp.

Who was the first underground writer to cross over to the mainstream?

Richard Brautigan.

Who was the last one?

Charles Bukowski.

Where do I stand?

Next.