The Appleseed

"And lo, a little Toad shall lead them!"

2003-11-26T07:08:00.000-05:00

Wait no longer! "Toad" the .mp3 is here!

In a last-second editing decision, WMH's back-up vocal was, shall we say, held back. It may reemerge in subsequent mixes (yes, there will be more. I envision horns, strings, choral effects). But for now, save for bass track by Rooster Van Dyke, who flew in from Terre Haute for the session, it is all-Baba.

And yes, "Toad Without No Wings" appears here as an .mp3 file. If you CLICK HERE and nothing happens...make sure your browser (Internet Explorer? Netscape?) is properly enabled.

So lah-tee-tah...we're off to Joan Baez's holiday feast in Taos. Or is it Santa Fe? Somewhere down there in desert country....

2003-09-29T11:04:00.000-04:00

COMING SOON!

Studio recording of "Toad Without No Wings."

For some time, WMH has been nagging me to let him sing backups the next time I went into the studio. Only...it didn't seem to be coming about anytime in this century or the next.

So he paid for the studio time himself, and we laid down tracks at Westwood Drive Studios.

The session engineer was a young Baba devotee, Marc Minsker, a performer himself, a fan of Sun Ra's Arkestra, and an overall Sixties nut who can answer questions like: "When Bob Dylan says 'Are we rolling Bob?' who is he talking to?" (Marc, by the way, even remembers being at Applestock--though he was born eighteen years later.)

Bill Henderson's contribution to "Toad" was...welcome, of course.

But what was planned as a back-up vocal, turned into something more like a second lead. Bossy as I am, I have a hard time telling people like Henderson to "lay back" or "cool your voice" or any of those euphemisms musicians use when what they really mean is, "try shutting the f--k up."

Okay: posting date is only days away, on ApplestockNation.com. Stay tuned. (Efforts may now proceed for global release parties.)

2003-09-28T23:10:00.000-04:00

I'm baaaaaaack!

Walkabout is officially over.

Who could have imagined I'd be out walkabouting as long as I was? Bizarre things have happened since I swore of blogging. I mean, damn it, people!--Blogger itself has been bought by Google! and that's only the beginning.

The book? Done! (cackling madly) Yes, done, by cracky, I swear on my sainted mother's Strunk & Whyte! Done. And the beast is stirring. So fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

2003-05-17T17:03:00.000-04:00

Brothers and Sisters, Baba Ray is on. . . Walkabout.

ApplestockNation.com, will resume as an active site just as soon as WMH gets off his butt and finishes Applestock '66 the manuscript. This will be soon, since his wife and daughters have served notice that, until "Dad" dots the last "i" and crosses the last "t," he is in danger of being reclassified as persona non grata in his own home.

In the simplest possible terms, either Applestock '66 will be out the door or WMH will be out in the street by end of May.

Oh--wonder why WMH has so much trouble getting things done? Have a taste of his Preface to the novel itself. That'll give you a hint.

Stay tuned. If you're on the mailing list--I'll be in touch. If not, wouldja like to join the Friends of Applestock? Send a quick e-mail to. . . babaray@applestocknation.com

2003-03-20T21:42:00.000-05:00

Lest We Forget....

Al Gore: 50,999,897
George W. Bush: 50,456,002

2003-03-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

Since ApplestockNation.com went live, I've been inundated with requests for more info on "Toad Without No Wings." One day soon, it will be an audio link on ApplestockNation.com, but for now, friends, try to make do with the lyrics alone.

I don't apologize. Let the words stand or fall on their own. Just remember, this was 1966...roughly the same time frame wherein Barry McGuire put out "Eve of Destruc-shennn."

"My blood's so mad
Feels like coagulatin'
And I'm just sitting here
Contemplatin'. . ."

That's what was in the air.

Toad Without No Wings
(copyright 1966 by Ray Riffles)

Come on, all you
children of the
present,

Grow your hair and
smoke some weed to-
night.

The road ahead is
guarded by a
pheasant.

Pheasants ain't gonna
let you see the
light.

I'm a-goin' down the road
smellin' like a toad
smellin' like a toad without no
wings.

Gonna rest my weary load
squattin' in that road
smellin' like a toad without no
wings.

We...
are the future's
amphibians.

We could swim the
daaay we were
born.

In a previous
life we were prob'ly
Lybians.

Waitin' ten thousand
years to be
born.

I'm a-goin' down the road
smellin' like a toad
smellin' like a toad without no
wings.

Gonna rest my weary load
squattin' in that road
smellin' like a toad without no
wings.

America! Don't make us live a lie.
The truth is gonna make us (truth is gonna make us, truth is gonna make us)
High!!!!

I'm a-goin' down the road
smellin' like a toad
smellin' like a toad without no
wings

Gonna rest my weary load
squattin' in the road
smellin' like a toad without no
wings.

Note: usually there's a stunned silence at this point. It's okay...don't feel you have to say anything. Baba understands.

On the other hand, you may be (as many are) deeply affected, and wish to connect. If so, I'm here for you. . . BabaRay@excite.com

Click here for a "Toad" related excerpt from Applestock '66. . . .

2003-02-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

(Ahem...) On this date forty years ago (that's right, 40), the picture below was taken.

Assuming you were born by then, can you recall where YOU were on Feb. 5, 1963?

I can. I was about as young as the kids in the picture, but instead of freewheelin' through the Village, "Assistant Dean Riffles" (that's how I was known in those days) was out breaking up a snowball fight between Rodney Duke and Robby Cahill, two of the more notable "boys" at Newton Academy for Boys.

Here's how I looked later that year (Spring).

Note the contrast with Dylan, who is full of spritely presence, forward energy, lightness, THE MOMENT, ready to spring like a gazelle into his future.

"Asst. Dean Riffles," by comparison, is all morose self-absorption, and yes, loneliness (where's the girl? There wasn't one).

So you see me above as I was in '63, age 26—without the slightest clue what was in the cards for "Assistant Dean Riffles." In my world, it was still 1958 and would be forever.

Even though. . . I was the same man who, within 3 years, would be. . . THIS MAN!

The mystery of history. Ain't it grand?

2003-01-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

Okay—how to say this: I've been advised by counsel to avoid going any further into the specifics of my English holiday. Thus spake Zarathustra, I guess. To those of you who were hanging on tenterhooks for the rest of it, mea culpa. I apologize. I guess I should have packed it all into the previous post anyway . (See the pitfalls of brevity, short-post people?) I bow to a greater power.

I don't think anything rules out a picture, however. Worth a thousand words, y'know. Patsy on the left, Eddie on the right. Go wild.

2003-01-20T14:09:00.000-05:00

I'm ba-a-aack from a sudden & spontaneous winter vacation. Yes, the cliche envelope arrived (purple, scented) from London—a kind of fan note inside—exhortations from two mysterious "devotees of the Clover Way." Inside was a roundtrip plane ticket. I was to meet them at Heathrow, the note said, and be prepared to whizz off in a limo (honk-honk) to "a bloody castle" somewhere in Cornwall. The way I read it, there was an implicit dare attached to the invitation: how cool are you, Baba? Still cool enough to take a dive into the unknown? Prove it!

I was on the plane in a shot.

And yes, was met by two flamboyantly attractive English ladies, Edina (or "Eddie"), a publicist, kind of plump and flighty and narcissistic, and her statuesque friend Patsy, a stunningly bloodthirsty blonde of a certain age (she'd have scared me to death, thirty years ago, but nothing female scares me now).

A third gal piled into the limo for the ride, vaguely familiar looking, methought. To my amazement, she turned out to be none other than Marianne Faithfull, a woman whom I once adored, lusted after, pined for (all this as a mere fan)—a woman who gave me the thrill of my life by ringing up (in her cups) desperate to "make history" by opening the Festival on Friday night. I had to tell her we'd already committed to The Grateful Dead, which mortally offended her, I fear. Never heard from her again.

So I must say, it was a VERY interesting several days, as you can well imagine. I never saw Eddie and Patsy's TV show, "Absolutely Fabulous," (aka "Ab-Fab") but I gather these women are famous in the U.K. They all (even Marianne) seem to be seeking some kind of spiritual peace, and apparently one of them recalled me fondly as a '60s icon. Yes, I suppose I was—to some, Baba Ray was and is holy ground. In any case, it would take the gifts of a novelist, which I do not have, to convey even the smallest fraction of the steeplchase these outrageous girls put this old man through "on holiday" at the bloody castle. Heaven and hell!

However, I'll try--

But not now. Learned my lesson about "long posts," friends—this one's too long already, isn't it? So nya-nya-nya, you're just going to have to wait for the next installment . For now—just sod off, as they say over there.

But hey, watch this spot. . . .

You won't be sorry.

2003-01-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

As my Buddhist friends say, we must rid ourselves of attachments.

I've been trying to unstick my attachments for thirty years—so, like, why didn't I know better than to be EMAILING the tricky little buggers?

But what's done is done, and can only be, uh, redone. So. Let's ba-a-a-ack it up . . . .

There. Redone! Happy New Year to all of you.

2002-12-25T21:11:00.000-05:00

Christmas with Mother in Columbus. . . .

She is far from the domineering busybody she was in 1966. (Have I said that she is now 96 and flakey as a two-thousand-year-old Saltine?)

I'll be posting my official Holiday Communication as soon as productive use of body and mind return. Until then-- breathe. . . breathe. . . breathe. . . .

"I. . . ME . . . NOW . . . I . . . ME . . . NOW . . . "

2002-12-17T16:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've been severly chastened. So no more "long" posts like that last one.

Actually, I didn't think it was all that long—this is important stuff, after all! But Sissy as usual provides the core logic: "How important can it be if nobody's ever gonna read it? This is the web, not the Library of Congress."

She's an experienced web surfer, recommends no more that three "lite chunks," a total of 50 words tops. I'm already way over. Gotta go . . . .

2002-12-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

HEY KIDS—! Today The Appleseed innaugurates a brand new feature: 1966 and All That...the World According to Baba Ray.

Baba Ray's History Lesson #1: Bob Dylan. Does anyone remember how huge he was in the mid-60's? I mean HUGE, overflowing the riverbanks, spilling new culture across border after border! (That is, unless you were, say, the young George Bush, who wouldn't have known new culture if it bit him.) The Pantheon of 1966 contained Dylan, the Beatles, Muhammed Ali--and virtually nobody else.

He forged today's male pop singing style, but that was only the beginning. Princeton gave him an honorary degree. Even the Black Panthers, who famously despised white culture, venerated him as a revolutionary saint, quoted him, played him.

You have to be a certain age to have "been there" on this one. No one from Generation X and beyond experienced it. They will have heard about it from their smart-assed older siblings or their dinosaur parents or read about it in some paunchy boomer rag like Rolling Stone. And if they happen to see Dylan on TV. . . well, as Sissy said, "He looks dead."

If only he WERE dead he might shine with the full force of legend. But he's not. He's totally alive, and not only that but scuttling ceaselessly around the world, constantly on the road, a scrawny dessicated 2,000-year-old dude living in the rock 'n' roll equivalent of "a trailer down by the river." If I were 15, I'd look at him and say, "That mustachioed old bag-of-bones—THAT'S the Dylan who you say was as big as a god? Whatever."

So let me put it in final perspective (very roughly). For Bob Dylan to have phoned me (as he did) in Applestock—from Sweden or wherever he was—wanting to come to our Festival (as he did)—in today's terms that's roughly like Stephen Spielberg calling to ask if he can shoot a video of my wedding. . . or Madonna calling to ask if I'd let her hang out with me over the weekend. . . or—

No, none of these examples are HUGE enough. I can't think of one. I'm not even sure it's possible anymore to be as culturally imposing as Dylan was right in that 5 or 6 year window of time. It was often said, at the time, with convincing plausibility, "Dylan is God." And for a while, like Captain Jim, he was.

Well. . . small g, anyway.

Thus ends Baba Ray's History Lesson #1.

2002-12-08T01:39:00.000-05:00

Dick Clark (or someone like him) phoned this morning about a TV "biopic" that he wants to develop for ABC, based on my life. He seemed hot to play me himself, both "me's"--then and now. But the more he talked, the more he thought better of it--like this: "Wouldn't I be perfect for the young Ray Riffles? Of course! Who else? Gosh, there's a time when I would have killed for that role. But let's face it, I'm not 28 anymore. And as for Baba Ray NOW, that wouldn't exactly be Oscar-class casting either." (Sure wouldn't, Dick, you're still too old to play me--at any age.)

Anyway, after facing reality, he put on his Dick Clark Productions hat and got down to work, casting The Ray Riffles Story (working title only) in his mind. Some interesting Young Ray/Older Ray combinations that came up:

Ewan McGregor - Clint Eastwood (oh, sure--but wouldn't you be flattered?)
Mathew Perry - Dennis Hopper (closer, much closer)
Darrell Hammond - both parts (...with an eye to the budget)
Cedric the Entertainer - James Earl Jones (Quixotic, but conceptually fascinating)

Who would I propose?

Leonardo di Caprio - Ray Riffles (That's right: who knows the older Ray better than I do?)

Stay tuned.

2002-11-29T15:43:00.000-05:00

Baba hears a lot of this. . . .

"Baba, what's it feel like to be the famous Ray Riffles of Applestock '66, but having lived on into 2002, still slogging through your daily routine, thirty-six years after all the fireworks went up?"

Am I wrong to be vaguely offended by such a question? I mean, "still slogging through your daily routine...." Llike--why are you still bothering to breathe?

My answer:

I have no daily routine, so why don't you go f__k yourself!

Just kidding--that's actually an allusion to an old Zen joke that nobody ever seems to get. =:) Frankly, most people don't have a clue about what it's like to be alive IN ANY SENSE AT ALL (that almost always includes the questioner, too, who is invariably a humanoid). That means any answer I come up with will be opaque or incomprehensible--or both--to almost anybody in the world. So why do I keep trying? Because, like Jimmy V, I never give up, nevah, nevah, nevah, nevah, nevah. Still with me? Then here we go. . . .

My answer, REALLY:

How does it feel? It feels as if 1966, spectacular though it may have been, was just an ordinary way station on the road to today, this moment. And the young Ray Riffles? A mere pencil sketch of the man he was to become (ME. . . NOW). Pro historians enshrine and elevate "the mythic cultural turning point" aspect of Applestock '66 because they'd lose their jobs (and benefits) if they told the truth, and revealed all human history as nothing but a set-up for the Present Moment. Bottom line: PME (Present Moment Enhancement) is History's ufltimate social benefit and the only practical use for that discipline.

Which brings me to Baba's First Law of Universal Experience:

Any Present Moment--mine, yours, George Bush's (it doesn't matter whose)--is, in a given context, the only manifestation of time that has meaning. "I. . . . ME. . . NOW. . ." simply connotes the following:

An infinite number of individuals ("I") experiencing themselves ("ME") moment by Present Moment ("NOW"). . . unto all eternity, world without end.

So it ought to be clear (unless you are a humanoid, that is) that 1966 is nothing more than an abstract number representing something that once WAS, but now ISN'T. It's not rocket science, people. All of history crumbles to a silly powder beside the monumental "NOW...NOW...NOW..." beating in the collective lives of a discrete anonymous humans --this includes all humans alive on the earth in any given Present Moment.

Even YOU, Reader, moment for moment, can stand for the sum total of all human experience. Be proud. And never forget to repeat after me: I. . . ME. . . NOW. . . I. . . ME. . . NOW. . .

2002-11-22T09:19:00.000-05:00

When I want you. . . all I have to do. . . is dre-e-e-e-eam.

Dreaming, realists say, is the last refuge of the romantic. Roy Orbison (a romantic if there ever was one) understood the power of living inside the dream.

What does Baba make of this? Baba thinks it's like real estate: location, location, location. In geographical terms, when you dream, you are IN, and the real world is OUT. Isn't this exactly what the romantic wants?

I want you. So all I have to do. . . is dre-e-e-e-e-e-am.

2002-11-20T01:04:00.000-05:00

I have a crush on my bank teller. Her name is Pegeen. Irish.

Pegeen is what is known as "a wife and mother." On her little patch of desk there's a plastic-framed snapshot of herself, her law-clerk husband, and her two clean kids. She's also what I call a Sloopy ("Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on!")—precisely the type of adorably hot little proletarian kissy-face my snobby Mother shielded me from all those years.

But there's a spooky make-up detail that never fails to throw me: she doesn't seem to recognize own lip line. She paints a totally other-shaped lip on top of her real one. Why would a girl do that?

According to Sissy, who checked her out at my request, it's obvious: in her natural state, Pegeen has "slut lips," and she's trying to signal, with the prim overlay, that she's not that kind of girl.

Baba knew that.

2002-11-14T10:26:00.000-05:00

I just had coffee & biscotti with Sissy, who has become "political" in her maturity. Problem is, she has to make up for 20 or 30 years of total neglect of anything that ever happened in what we kind of agree on as "the real world." And yet she has the nerve to twit me. "I, ME, NOW...I, ME, NOW. How is that going to help people get their rights and stuff?"

I've heard it before. And it's totally scurrilous. I'm deeply concerned with political matters. To prove it, I offer what I believe to be one of the most significant political links on the Internet. This is deep, but reach a little. . . .

2002-11-12T17:10:00.000-05:00

I'm always meeting people who swear up & down they were at Applestock (Jetrink for instance). They guilt trip me: "Baba, don't you remember me?"

Was Jetrink really there? Were any of them? Due to the if-you-remember-you-weren't-there factor, I don't make much of a distinction between those who SAY they were and those who WERE.

Really—are the two states of being so radically different?

2002-10-15T23:22:00.000-04:00

Does anybody see themselves in this photo--it's Paddleford Dell, Saturday morning, midway through the Festival.

2002-10-02T09:28:00.000-04:00

Baba apologizes for the grey-boring look-and-feel of this blog so far. I'm a mere babe, just learning to post links. Here's one. . .

And. . . hmmm. . . images. Here is Baba Ray with cat (Puffy).

For my next trick, I'm going to throw in a pop-up window for commentary. Then I'll add chrome manifolds and a continental kit and be ready to roar. When?

All in good time, my pretties. All in good time.

2002-10-02T00:40:00.000-04:00

About today's humanoids--they confuse me. Even while they beguile and delight me. Something about their flirty pseudo-maturity, an air of extreme knowingness, a sagacious style, which aims to tell you they're in play, but oh so cool about it. I've never understood cool.

Okay, I'm talking about the women. You knew that.

My Sissy, who (over 30 years ago!) loved me the moment she realized I was "somebody," has been Harvard Square's reigning blues queen for years, still looks 34, still trolls for guys and they stand in line. But she has nothing on these chicklets. They are sooo hip, so in-their-sweet-bodies, so ironic, so unshockable. Yet, push them beyond material basics and they are suddenly just a collection of attitudes without a center. Like, WHO ARE YOU ? A secret box of heat and dust inside an infinite regress of empty boxes. A flashy freeway that ends & there's no place for cars to go except off a sudden cliff gaping in the darkness. . . .

They don't know the darkness is there. "Come touch me Mr. Holy Man," says a hip college chick, leading a little hairless dog. "Touch my puppy, too." She thinks she's sized me up--an old wreck of a beatnik out looking for love, & she thinks that's funny, ha ha ha.

Am I looking for love? Well, it's an open point, I guess. Humanoid girls are designed to be irresistable, just like Twinkies.

2002-09-30T00:26:00.000-04:00

Yawn. Where am I. . . ?

All signs point to Mt. Auburn Street, where I've apparently been sitting in the high-rise, crosslegged, digging multiple sunsets from the aerie for. . . how many days?

(I. . . Me. . . Now. . . I. . . Me. . . Now. . . . )

Anyway, I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ack!

And tired. too. Paunch returning. Really, I should take up jogging again, become an aerobics champ like James Taylor wanted me to be. In the meantime, I think I'll spend this week among the humanoids of Harvard Square, describing what being a new human is all about.

2002-09-22T14:49:00.000-04:00

An intriquing proposal came into the office today, a personal note from the Govenor of Montserrat. They want to put my likeness on an official postage stamp. An expensive one, too--the $1.15 biggie. I shouldn't let myself be flattered; it's just marketing, just a ploy to harness my 60s notoriety to sell stamps to baby boomer collectors. But I'll be in good company. Jerry is on not one but several Montserrat stamps. Bob Marley, too.

Actually, the stamp should commemorate Applestock (duh!). But who am I to gum up the works? I 'm sending a picture. . . .

2002-09-16T15:41:00.000-04:00

Ever since Conan O'Brien gave out my personal email address on the air (oh, why not--it's BabaRay@excite.com) I've heard from whole new categories of people. First, there are the girls, mere teenagers, who send me very interesting graphic files of themselves. This is inexplicable. Do they realize I am 62? This is not the 28-year-old spirit of Applestock anymore. Maybe it's because Conan went to such great lengths to position me with his viewers as "hip," a walking chunk of sixties history on a par with Leary, Ram Dass, Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia. Why? Baba I may be, but I never led a movement. I never wrote an anthem for a generation. Looking at it from Conan's point of view, I suppose he thought he needed "alternative" given his demographics-- He, of course, because he's so young, missed out on the meat and pith of Applestock in 1966. Bless him, he has no earthly idea how deliciously alternative it all was. . . . Well, anyway, he's tall, did you know that? Conan Obrien is 6 feet 4!

The other email I'm getting is, sadly, from humanoids. Humanoids are minor league humans. They can play, but they can't hit very hard or throw very fast, and that's why they are stuck down there in the existential minors. Humanoids claim to be sincere seekers of enlightenment, but what they are really seeking is today's TV schedule. If you're a humanoid you might burn and yearn and churn ("Cold feet about the cosmos?" says the old jingle, "Can't face the flux?") but you'll never find solace because your references are all TV-bound and there are no answers on TV.

Oh, well, anything good on tonight? Don't get me started.

2002-09-15T17:10:00.000-04:00

Baba Ray Speaks. . . .

Ain't technology grand? Yes, being a 60s kind of guy, I resisted it at first, I admit. Yes, I clung to all those defensive Luddite notions of the superiority of the lead pencil and the IBM Selectric. But to hell with that. Once I realized what I really wanted--needed--HAD TO HAVE--was A WEB SITE, the walls came a-tumbling down. So: here we go. My soon-to-be pride & joy, ApplestockNation.com isn't quite up yet, but. . . stay tuned. When it goes live, it's going to be spectacular, and a powerful reminder of something the world has nearly forgotten: that the very first festival of rock 'n' roll was NOT Monterey Pop or Woodstock. . . but Applestock '66, and we should damn well know it and not forget it.

Not that I sit around all day thinking about Applestock. There's plenty else to occupy what remains of my mind. And anyway, I don't have to: there is a book now that promises to chronicle the whole thing. I say "promises"--actually, I shouldn't pretend that I haven't read it; I have, in manuscript. Author William McCranor Henderson has done the job. I can't really say that I come off looking all that good much of the time. No one can ever accuse me of commissioning a puff job. But it gets my blessing because it's basically honest, and vastly informative about what happened in Applestock, Maine, in 1966. Culturati take note: this is the one big story from the Sixties that has never been told before. Stand by. . . .