“Jesus Was A Hippie”

“Jesus Was A Hippie”
By: Bob Gersztyn

“Jesus was a hippie,” the long haired and bearded friend of Ostap’s named Sal, told me back in August 1969. I was still living in Michigan and was at Ostap’s place in Detroit for a party and Sal was sitting by himself in the living room on the couch, that didn’t have any legs and sat flat on the rug, with the cushions 18″ off the floor. Sal had a radiance about him, but then I was coming down off an acid trip on strawberry microdot, and I was drawn towards him.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” I asked.
“The Lord brought you to me,” he told me. “Have a seat.”

For the next hour, Sal, which is short for Salvador, I found out, immigrated from El Salvador, with his family, when he was a child. He told me that he didn’t use drugs because they weren’t necessary for a real religious experience.
“Drugs like LSD can only take you to the door. You still have to pass through it on your own with a clear mind, after you come down,” Sal explained.

I understood what he meant, but I told him that I still hadn’t found the door, when he looked at me with a transfixing stare that penetrated me to the core and said. “Jesus is the Door.” He told me that after he had taken LSD, mescaline and even DMT over a hundred times that one day he realized that he had come to the conclusion that there was a God, whatever that meant. Therefore God must have left some clues about what life is all about, when he realized that there was a Bible sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

He explained, “I picked it up and started reading from chapter 1 of Genesis and for the next month, in every spare moment that I wasn’t working or sleeping, I was reading. I concluded with the book of Revelation at 8:00 AM one Sunday morning in June and decided to go to church. Since I was Roman Catholic at the time, I went to Mass at 9:00 AM at St. Florian’s in Hamtramack and was overwhelmed by the liturgy and the beauty of the church itself. Then when it was over, I went to the Assembly of God church for their 11:00 AM service and was blown away by the contrast. After some incredible congregational singing led by a hippie looking guy with long hair and a handlebar mustache, the pastor who was dressed in a dark blue business suit, white shirt and black tie gave his sermon. He looked like a dork, with black framed Buddy Holly glasses, and a military crew cut, but when he spoke his words were like arrows to my heart. By the end of the service, I found myself down at the Alter along with half the congregation. They were all kneeling with their hands outstretched and it seemed like such a natural position to come before God. The minister came over to me and asked me if I had ever received the Lord Jesus Christ and I told him that I was baptized a Catholic. Then he put one hand on my head and with the other poured oil from a vial, onto my head, as he prayed.

“Wholly Other entity or nonentity, whatever you may be or want to be called I implore you and recognize the power that you have to direct our lives through the spirit of synchronicity, also known as the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. I ask you to help our brother into the fold by giving him a double portion of salvation the baptism in the Holy Ghost. Halleluiah and praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ who bought our salvation through his blood and death on the cross.”

Then Sal explained, “I was kneeling with my hands raised in complete surrender and was asking God to accept me as his servant as tears streamed down my cheeks. Suddenly I found myself speaking in tongues and then the next thing I knew, I regained consciousness in a nearly empty sanctuary. The only ones there were the pastor and 2 men and a woman. They told me that I had been slain in the spirit and fell into a catatonic stupor for a period and then without getting up off the floor, had prophesied for nearly half an hour, before I went into a catatonic state again for another 20 minutes before regaining consciousness.”

Around this time the friends that I arrived with came over and said that they were leaving, so I told Sal goodbye. As we drove Tim lit up a joint and we smoked it on our way to the Duchess Lounge, where the Naked Lunch was playing. Sal gave me a new goal for tripping. Instead of just trying to find God, I was also looking for the door that leads into the transcendent. At the same time most freaks like me believed that Jesus was a hippie in his time, back in the day, but it would be another 2 years of psychedelic exploration for me before I found the door.

Chuck Girard Interview Part 2

I forgot to post part 2 of my Chuck Girard Interview. With all the hoopla of the “United We Will Stand” concert last week and the emphasis on the roots of CCM and Jesus music, I thought that it would be advantageous to let Girard finish his story. His interview and dozens of other pioneers of CCM were what I used to write my book “Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music.” It was the first and unless someone rode on my coat tails, the only book of its kind on the subject. In the future I’ll publish other interviews that I did for the book with other primary sources, like Tommy Coomes, Michael Blanton and Billy Ray Hearn, along with dozens of others. My blog and book are 2 places that you can get an accurate academic analysis of CCM. Here is part 2 of my interview with Chuck Girard, which began on December 10, 2014.

Bob Gersztyn: You know an interesting thing while I was looking through your online book, and you had that example that a lot people come up with about some missionary going into Africa, and his kids play some rock song that the natives say sounds like something that their witch doctor would use to conjure up evil spirits with. Did you by any chance see the Martin Scorsese PBS documentary on the Blues that came out?

Chuck Girard: No, I didn’t every actually get to see it but I knew that he had done it, I think I saw a little bit of the segment with the Taj Mahal on it, I saw a little bit of that one.

Gersztyn: Well this one thing that blew me away was when he had commercial blues artist Keb Mo, go to Africa, and they went to this remote village somewhere, and they played a Muddy Waters song for him. These guys listened to it, and they said hey he is one of us, and they start playing this same melody under native instruments, and they start singing, and it is unbelievable. They are singing the same melody, except his words are different, he is talking about a city in his existence where as our song we’re talking about going out, and hunting a lion, and how the harvest was, and stuff like this. They said these are our traditional folk songs. I thought wow that kind of blows the hole in the whole witch doctor thing.

Girard: I’ll have to check that out because that is very interesting, I would love to see that, that is the one with Keb’ Mo in it?

Gersztyn: Yeah I can’t remember what night it was.

Girard: That’s all on DVD now I think so you can probably rent it.

Gersztyn: Yeah, they went to Africa they were there for I think that whole episode, and they were looking for the roots of the Blues, and where it came from. It kind of showed the evolution of the whole thing, and something that was interesting at the same time Robert Darden who’s the senior editor of the Wittenburg Door, he wrote a book called People Get Ready which was on the history of black gospel music. He has a lot of this stuff in it. If you want to read a really good book that talks about how music, Rock music, I mean he is specifically talking about black gospel music, but you can see it coming into doo-wop, and all this stuff, and the melodies he’s talking about, how this came from these ancient folk songs from that period.

Girard: I believe that, I’m not a scholar of it but I believe that would be a very easy case to make, and I’m sure he does a great job of it.

Gersztyn: What are some of your current musical projects right now?

Girard: You know I’m getting older, and I’m not in the public eye anymore, and I’ve been doing my own thing since about 1980, and it’s been kind of difficult because it’s very expensive to make an album. Part of my latest transition in my life was that three years ago I moved to Nashville. I happen to be out on the West Coast right now but I live in Nashville now, and my son-in-law has a studio that I’m able to use free of charge, and then I have a very good overdub room in my house so the cost of albums has gone measurably down. I’m looking forward to in my later years here being able to be a little more prolific because back from 1980 on I’ve really only made about four albums so that’s only one every five years or something.

Gersztyn: So you came here to Salem, Oregon back, boy I can’t remember if it was the late ‘80’s or the early ‘90’s but I took my son to go see you, and you played at a church here. I talked to you briefly, no way you would possibly remember but I just thought I’d throw that in.

Girard: Well thanks, it’s always a thrill to hear those kind of stories. Back to current projects, I put an album out in 1996 called Voice of the Wind that was a live worship album, kind of pre-dating really the worship movement because even though it came out 1996 I had been working on it for ten years because it took so long to make it. So I’m currently developing volume two of that, in fact I actually brought all the basic recording equipment, the computer, and all the outboard gear that I needed here to LA. Actually last night recorded some people my daughter put together from her church for the congregational part of it because we needed to record, you can never really successfully record a group of people singing in a church because of the sound leakage, and all of that, so you have to go back in a re-record it later. So we did that last night and while I’m out here I’ll also put my friend Caleb Quaye who did all the guitar parts on my first worship project. I’m going to have a few days with him to do some guitar stuff out here. Caleb was with the Elton John band in the early days, and he teaches music out at Life Bible College now. So I’m going to be able to be a little more prolific here in my later years, and hopefully by the end of the year I’ll have this volume two of this very different, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Voice of the Wind album but it’s very down tempo, low key, an hour long piece that kind of pulls you into, as I’ve been told, into worship, and into prayer, and into praise. So a lot of people have been waiting for volume two for a long time. The concept of this album is to record it live, the basic song, and then embellish after the fact with adding guitars and bass and drums, and all that after you record the initial connection with the audience. I didn’t want to have bunch of musicians on stage with me because it would be distracting so the basic live recording is just me and a keyboard with a group of people, and then we embellish it after the fact. So that’s the next album that would come out. After that’s done, I’ll make my first studio album with live players since 1991. That will be the project that comes after the worship project and I am really excited about that because it will be my first album of kind of all original tunes done in the studio since 1991. So that’s the next two, and then I don’t know where I’m going to be going from there.

Gersztyn: Well that’s very interesting do you think you might have a Love Song reunion at any point?

Girard: That door is never closed; we actually did a reunion this summer. Calvary Chapel was refurbishing the big sanctuary during the month of April and May, and they set up circus tents again for six weeks, and I flew down. I was up in Canada on tour, and we got together, and we played one night in the tent, and it was web cast, and the whole thing, it was really a brilliant night, and it really came off just great. The guys really love to play together. Tommy Coomes and I have our own ministry direction going so we are less hungry for the opportunity to play. But Bob, and Jay, and those guys they play at the drop of a hat. There’s always talk about touring again, but here’s the problem, you have to get someone to promote it, and in the climate of the way things are today, and the expense involved in mounting a tour with five players it would have to be somebody that really had faith in the project, and was willing to put some money into it. So I don’t really know if we’d ever be able to put together a successful reunion tour because we couldn’t mount it, the financial side if it, we couldn’t do it ourselves, and I don’t know if we could find someone that would believe enough in the idea. At the end of the day they have to make money, and I don’t blame them for thinking that way because you can’t go out there with the idea that you’re going to lose money, and I just don’t know if there is anybody out there willing to take that kind of risk.

Gersztyn: With the Christian radio stations all over the country I would think that somehow there would probably be some way, but again somebody would have to take up and want to do it.

Girard: You’d be amazed at how little interest there is with Christian radio stations about anybody back from the ‘70’s. There is a whole new generation of young people out there that don’t even know what the Jesus Movement was much less who Love Song was.

Gersztyn: Sure, my daughter who’s just going to Bible College right now, she says to me Dad she says I’m finding out all of this stuff about how the hippie movement started the Jesus Movement she said you ought to write a book about that. She said I never even knew about all of that, and these people don’t have a clue about it, and the only reason I even know is because of you. I look at right now why I’m interviewing you about the interest in the 1960’s because of the forty year anniversary of the summer of love, and I would think that the same sort of thing would be going on within the people who want to make money in Christianity. I mean you have to look at it totally not from a spiritual point of view but from a monetary business point of view, well there’s a buck to be made because of the fact that there’s the anniversary of the Jesus Movement. Just like Woodstock, right now you’ve got a two year period between the summer of love, and Woodstock, and they are going to be going crazy for this whole two years with the 1960’s. Well at the end of that the Jesus Movement begins, and so you might just run into somebody, and drop something, and maybe they’ll get interested who knows.

Girard: Well it could happen, and if somebody did it right I think it could be successful. You know it takes some capital. I am actually working on writing my life story right now, and I kind of wish I had that ready right now but it’s quite a project to really just sit there, and remember everything and write it down. I was talking to Jay Truax the Love Song bass player about some chronology. We are e-mailing to figure out what happened when , did this happen first or did this, because so much of it is so mushed together because of the drugs and all of that, so I forget the chronology of it. When I felt like really led of the Lord to write this all down I thought “who cares about my life, and what do I have to write about?” I never even became really famous, but as I really write down the experiences that I had it is amazing. Even I’m interested, and I’m going “wow, this is great if I was reading this about somebody else I would be totally riveted”. I’m going up to Northern California in the next couple of months, and I’m going to have a lot of down time where I’m not going to be around my comfort zone, and hopefully I’m going to try to really just peck out some pages of this book, and get his thing finished because I think it is going to be a very interesting story. It is representative of just what you’re talking about, it is all about the Jesus Movement, and it will be in its own way a history book.

Gersztyn: Well you were right at the epicenter of it, and if anybody would have had something to say about it, it would definitely be you.

Girard: Well you know it is funny because my life, in a way, parallels the progression of rock music. When I became musically conscious rock music was in it’s infancy. So my whole life span kind of parallels the growth of rock and roll from doo-wop to what it is today. In a way my story is not just a history of the Jesus Movement it’s a history of music because I get into a lot of the stuff about starting out in the studios. Back in the days when I first recorded we would use three track machines. I was working in the same studios where Phil Spector cut the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers, and a lot of the book is going to cover musical history too, so it is going to be interesting on a number of levels. I’m actually more excited about that almost than I am some of the musical projects, about getting it done at least.

Gersztyn: Who are some of the other people that you would name as being important like yourself who came out of that period?

Girard: I’m not saying I’m important

Gersztyn: When I say important I mean you’re important because of the fact that you were at the epicenter of it. And I’m not saying it for an egotistical sort of reason, but the fact that well here’s an example, Mylan LeFever. I used to go to rock concerts, I’m from Detroit, Michigan originally, and when I was a hippie I would drop acid, and I’d go to the local rock venue called the East Town Theater, and I went to go see Traffic one time, and Mylan had a group. I knew nothing about them but in the middle of the rock concert I’m telling my wife who was my girlfriend then, “I feel like I’m in church,” and then I find out ten years later he was a back-slidden Christian.

Girard: Well I’ll tell you I guess the way to answer the question would be like. who’s book would I want to read. I think Barry McGuire could write a very interesting book. I think he’s been faithful for many years. In many ways he’s the patriarch of the whole movement because among my peers Barry is the oldest one of us. See here’s the deal.. age-wise I’m about ten years older than most of my peers, Randy Stonehill, Larry Norman.Larry is a little older but most of those guys are about ten years younger than I am. Then in my range there are a few people that are kind of in their sixties now but then it goes up to Barry who is in his seventies so he is really a father, and has had a very interesting life. Andrae Crouch would make an interesting book if it is not already out. Some of these guys might have already written a book for all I know. Those guys were pioneers.. they were like the first guys. When I got born again Larry’s album was out, Larry Norman, so he was really the first. Upon This Rock was already out, and Andrae was doing stuff. So for a little period of time there about all there was out there was Love Song, and Larry, and Andrae. Those people would have interesting stories. Larry lives right up there where you are I think right?

Gersztyn: Yeah, I even did some photography for Larry a few years ago.

Girard: So they are interesting people that had something to do with it, I think after it gets into the Michael W. Smiths, and the Steven Curtis Chapman’s it’s already kind of commercialized, and I don’t know that those stories would be as interesting to me as some of the earlier ones, it is just a handful you know.

Gersztyn: I was writing articles for an encyclopedia, and I needed to talk to Barry, and I did. I started to talk to him like I was with you about the early days, and when I brought up the subject of drugs he got very upset so I don’t think he would really want to talk about that early period.

Girard: I know him pretty well but he has some little places, and then he will change his mind too. I don’t know? I don’t get that, why he would get angry with that if it is part of your experience.

Girard: How long ago was this?

Gersztyn: I think it was 2004.

Girard: I don’t know him as well as others do but I know him pretty well but I didn’t know that side of him. I didn’t know that he had that kind of little eccentricity I guess you’d call it.

Gersztyn: I’m interested in the whole, because I came out of the hippie movement, and LSD. It’s like one night I just had a bad trip like you, and I said that’s it I’m done with this stuff, and I flushed it down the toilet. The next day I had a Bible, and I started reading my Bible. Within a few months after that I became a born again Christian. It’s like to say there wasn’t a connection between that would be absurd, so I’m interested, and I feel everybody who was involved in the drugs has that connection, because it’s an obvious connection.

Girard: Yes it’s part of your story, and I’m a little shocked that he’s like that.

Gersztyn: Well even Mike Macintosh I remember listening to his testimony about taking acid, and having a bag over his head, and somebody shooting a gun next to it. And Odin Fromm talking about how he was in the desert and had a hundred hits of the most powerful acid, and he saw a vision of Jesus, and everybody would talk about it. Anyway I think that I got plenty of information here, more than enough that I’ll need for the interview, and the only other thing is I’d like to get some photographs to go along with it, and the thing that is really frustrating is I photographed you in Love Song many times back in the ‘70’s, and I gave somebody all my slides. They were going to do something with them, and they never gave them back to me, and I can’t remember who it was, and these things would be irreplaceable. One set of them if you ever see them they had the name Laverne Campbell stamped on them because I did them for the pastor of my church.

Girard: I know Laverne, he’s dead now right?

Gersztyn: Yeah, he was my pastor, and in fact I photographed Love Song for him; I think you guys were going to the Philippines.

Girard: Yeah he had something to do with that.

Gersztyn: Yeah, and so I think he went with you even.

Girard: Yeah I think he did actually.

Gersztyn: And so I shot a roll of film of you guys, and gave him the slides, and I think I have two of the slides right now.

Girard: Alright, I’m glad we got to do this, and I’m sorry that it took so long.

The Night Before Christmas

After driving a taxi cab for 9 years I accumulated thousands of experiences that I cathartically write about. This is my most recent photo essay as a seasonal piece for Christmas.

The Night Before Christmas by Bob Gersztyn

 

 

 

Repercussions From the Summer Of Love At Ft. Sill, Oklahoma

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

 

Over 46 years ago, when I was in the army I wrote a diary my last 165 days, with the intention of one day turning into a novel about what it was like to be a draftee stationed in the USA, during the peak of the war in Vietnam. I wanted it to be what “Here To Eternity” was to the army just before WWII, but I knew that I needed time to learn how to write and experience life first. So I put the diary in a box and kept it there for 30 years, while I lived my life. Then 30 years later in 1998 I transcribed it onto Microsoft word and saved it. I read it over and ruminated on it for another 10 years and even reconnected with an old army buddy. Then in 2008 I began writing the novel, using my diary for the skeletal framework to hang my story on. I used the diary structure, so there are 165 short chapters averaging 1300 words and totaling over 200,000 words. I completed my first complete draft on Monday, November 3, 2014. Now I will go through it and edit it, which will probably take me 3 – 6 months. This is the introduction.

165 Days Short

or

Repercussions From the Summer Of Love At Ft. Sill, Oklahoma

By: Bob Gersztyn

 

Back in the late 1960’s, if you enlisted or were drafted into the U.S. Army you could plan on spending 1 or 2 years in Vietnam, Korea, Germany and/or the U.S.A. Stateside duty could mean a gravy tour if you got the right assignment. If you ended up at Ft. Ord, California you could go to Frisco and Berkley, Ft. Dix, New Jersey was near New York City and Ft. Polk, Louisiana had New Orleans and the Mardi Gra a couple of hours away. Where ever you ended up one thing was for sure, going to town meant that you could act like a civilian for a few hours. Some guys even got stationed close enough to home that they could visit their families whenever they wanted to.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

The downside of a domestic tour was experienced when you were stationed at a base located in the middle of nowhere, next to a small town that existed solely as a result of the post’s presence. In such cases the population’s attitude towards the GI’s vacillated between gratitude and animosity. Such was the case with Ft. Sill, which was adjacent to Lawton in south central Oklahoma, about 50 miles from the Texas border. Lawton came into existence as a result of Ft. Sill being established. People felt safer living next to a fort full of soldiers, in hostile Indian country.

 

Ft. Sill has been the home of the “U.S. Field Artillery Center and School” since 1911. General Phillip Sheridan founded it in 1869, when he was conducting a winter campaign, against the Southern Plains tribes. During the late 1870’s the “Buffalo Soldiers” of the 9th and 10th cavalry were stationed there and supplied much of the labor in the construction of the Fort. By the late 1960’s it was in full swing as a training base for artillery units going over to Vietnam.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

Lawton is located a few miles south of the base and was founded in 1901. At that time a lottery was held distributing 160 acre parcels to white settlers on what was then the Kiowa-Comanche reservation. The town was named after General Henry W. Lawton. It is the third largest city in the state, as well as the cultural and economic center for the region. Cattle, dairy, agriculture and the military make up the primary industries for the area. Cameron College, home of the Aggies was located within the city limits, and drew students from surrounding areas. The combined population for Lawton/Ft. Sill amounted to nearly 100,000.

 

All unmarried GI’s lived on base in military barracks. The quarters varied from wooden frame structures to newer cinder block and even brick buildings. Non-training semi-permanent support units were housed in the newer facilities, for the most part.

After Toby Grines was drafted in August of 1966, he ended up in two of those support units. First he was assigned to the 395th Engineering Company, since he was a carpenter. At least that was what his M.O.S. (Military occupation) was. It said he was a 51B20, so he was placed in the carpentry platoon, where he worked with guys who had been building houses, during the economic boom that was happening. The only problem was that he had never done any construction carpentry work. Back home in Detroit, Michigan Toby had been a wood pattern making apprentice, learning how to construct precision automotive die patterns, for the big three (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler). When the personnel clerk saw the word wood associated with Toby’s occupation he figured that he was a carpenter. Toby immediately submitted a 1049 requesting A.I.T. (Advanced Individual Training) M.O.S. training for carpentry or another military occupation.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

So they sent Toby to school, and trained him to be an armorer (small arms weapons specialist). He was able to perform second echelon maintenance one everything from 45 cal. pistols, to M14’s, 16’s, M-79’s, 60mm and 50 caliber machine guns. He had it made, and was exempt from all duty, and spent most of his day reading, talking to the unit mail clerk or playing solitaire.

 

Then in the summer of 1967, after PFC Grines went on leave for two weeks, the guy who took his place accidentally gave Captain Archer’s (the company commander) gas mask to an enlisted man during maneuvers. Captain Archer’s specially made eyeglasses were in the mask, and the man took them out. Toby was blamed in retaliation and he was transferred out of the unit to headquarter battery of the 3rd Field Artillery and Missile Group.

Since the headquarters unit didn’t pull guard duty, or have field maneuvers, it needed no weapons. Therefore it had no armory, other than 7 – 45cal. Pistols, which had to be checked and cleaned once per month, and this could be done in a couple of hours. Therefore it didn’t need a full time company armorer.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

Since Toby still had his carpenter MOS he was assigned to the new unit primarily as the R&U (Repair & Utility) man. The R&U position was the military equivalent of building maintenance. Toby’s days were spent repairing venetian blinds, replacing light bulbs and mowing the lawn and building or repairing whatever he was assigned to do. It wasn’t a very glorious position for a gung ho 20 year old.

 

As Toby began his second year of service he found himself in the new unit. It was a headquarters unit, which meant that it was made up of officers, clerks and short timers. There were two kinds of short timers; those who would be E.T.S-ing (Estimated Time of Separation) soon and those who would be shipping out for an overseas tour of duty.
The headquarters unit was smaller than the 395th and only had one platoon, which was called an artillery battery because it belonged to a heavy duty weapons Group. It only occupied the ground floor, while the 4/46th artillery battery occupied the top 2 floors. 3rd Group had a commanding officer, an XO and a first Sergeant, but the most important difference was the additional brass. It had everything from a full bird Colonel to a Sergeant Major, with a light Colonel, Majors, Captains, beaucoup First and Second Lieutenants and Warrant Officers in between. They all worked in personnel or in the group headquarters Block house. None of them resided in the barracks with the enlisted men.

Soon after being assigned to Headquarters battery of the 3rd Field Artillery & Missile Group, Pfc. Grines was promoted to Specialist 4th class. With the promotion came an additional job. The unit mail clerk received his orders for Vietnam, so SP/4 Grines took his place. Mail came twice a day, both in the morning and the afternoon. The mail clerk sorted and distributed it.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

While the 395th was made up of macho beer brawling construction worker draftee’s and lifers, 3rd Group was comprised of intellectual wanabee’s, college dropouts and pot smoking hippies. The disparity between the units even manifested itself in the music they played. Instead of hearing “The Righteous Brothers”, Smokey Robinson, Mitch Ryder and B.J. Thomas the windows were vibrating with “Country Joe & the Fish”, Bob Dylan, “Jefferson Airplane” and Jimi Hendrix.

The “Summer of Love” took place 1700 miles west, in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco, but its repercussions were felt even in the heart of Oklahoma. Some GI’s grew mustaches, wore love beads and even dared to wear peace symbols. Toby quickly integrated into 3rd Group and found himself thinking and talking about issues in ways that he hadn’t before. He began using mind altering substances, and even incurred a head injury during this time. The Army didn’t test for drugs at the time, because it wasn’t an issue, yet.

During this 165 day period Toby goes through a metamorphosis that takes him from being a Warren, Michigan, Roman Catholic tough guy, to a peace and love hippie and beyond. This all takes place in L.B.J.’s “New Action Army”, after the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam. It’s a time of unprecedented cultural, political and religious upheaval, and the Army is the meeting ground for young men to share their ideas with each other as they fulfill their destinies.

 

By the time he had less than 6 months of his two year hitch left, SP/4 Grines considered himself to be a short timer. Most soldiers don’t consider you a short timer until you break 100 days, but Toby didn’t care. Another idea that coincided with his decision to don the short timer mantle was keeping a daily diary. On Saturday, March 2, 1968, with only “165″ days left in the army he made his first entry, and continued to do so until the day that he was discharged. This is that record.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918046

INTERVIEW WITH A WITCH: PART 2

 

INTERVIEW WITH A WITCH: Part Two

By Bob Gersztyn
This is a continuation of my interview with Wiccan radio talk show host Marcus Tempe. We continued to talk about the battle between cultures and religions as human civilization evolved into its current manifestation.

THE DOOR: An objective study of world history reveals that every culture and ethnic group has relocated, exterminated or assimilated another. Some feel that this progression of history is in actuality orchestrated by a shadow organization, who in fact call the shots. This organization is usually associated with Witchcraft and the occult. What do you know about the illuminati?

THE BEAR: Robert Anton Wilson wrote a wonderful series of books of fiction. I enjoy the heck out of it; he did something that is absolutely crucial to any storyteller. He borrows enough of the truth to be able to make you go, you know that sounds possible. What if? Now he’s got you. Any good science fiction writer will base his story on good hard practical scientific fact. State of the art technology that goes one step further. What if? Political theory as far as criminal conspiracies are concerned are very much the same sort of thing. People can take any three unrelated facts and go, what if? Maybe they’re on to something, but maybe they’re not.

THE DOOR: You can’t fool us. What do you know about the controlling council on the 7th level of the illuminati, and its plans to subjugate the entire human race for its evil purposes?

 

 

THE BEAR: Absolutely nothing. Frankly I’m more concerned about 2nd Amendment issues. Because I am one of those rarities, an ACLU supporter, who has been invited by the ACLU as a moderator of one of their forums on a new web site they are putting up. This will take place when the move from AOL occurs. AOL has invited the ACLU to end its interaction and its website in AOL’s umbrella. The move will take place sometime during November 1999. This has got a lot of people very upset, because AOL has come across like they are kicking out the ACLU. The ACLU has maintained a presence there for a number of years and this is not what I would regard as a good thing.

THE DOOR: Wait a minute. The ACLU is being kicked off AOL because of its support of the 2nd Amendment?

THE BEAR: No. Mainly because of 1st Amendment violations. There are occasions where people will use dirty words, and naughty language and talk about female body parts. This has a lot of the more Church Lady types in the AOL user community very upset with the ACLU because they allow dirty words in ACLU discussions. Isn’t this terrible? No it isn’t. But it’s modern day American Protestant Christianity that has recognized or attached to these particular body functions and body parts the dirty word syndrome. Every time that you establish something as sinful simply because it’s sinful. It says in scripture here it’s sinful. Then reason and judgment effectively shut down. You have people who have made up their minds and stop looking. You can’t have a free and open discussion and explore possibilities if you’re worried about dirty words violating some ancient sheep herders taboo, out of a body of lore that was put together 4 or 5,000 years ago.

THE DOOR: I guess you don’t agree with Josh McDowell then? What do you think will eventually happen with religion on a global scale?

THE BEAR: I think that we’re heading to a shift in consciousness. If you read books like Jose Ortiaz and The Mayan Factor, if you read any of the works on Native American traditions, the Hopi elders, the prophecies that they have. New interpretations of Nostradamus coming through. A lot of different teachers and seers and forecasters have come to the conclusion that we are entering a paradigm shift, which is going to be a pretty bumpy ride for the next 15 years or so.

THE DOOR: So you equate Nostradamus with Native American Seers.

THE BEAR: I think that if you have the same message coming across like boats, there’s going to be a major change in the world happening between now and 2015. Be prepared for it. You see these things happening in the Mayan’s, in the Hopi, in the Navajo, in Nostradamus and in people who are doing interpretations of a lot of sources. We need to at least look at these things, and see if the forecasters and visionaries are right. Even if not.

THE DOOR: Even Christianity has its doomsday prophets going back to Jesus Himself.

THE BEAR: However, Christianity generally does not check itself with non-Christian sources. The people I’m talking about are coming from Native American sources, from Nostradamus, which is a cabalistic magick source, from people who are psychics, which gets into ESP and the parapsychology field, which may have absolutely nothing to do with either Native American or Cabalistic magick. The point is, when you have all these different people, from all these different traditions saying, yeah we’re entering into a bad patch, the prudent person would say, just in case the power does go out and the flood waters do rise I think it would be prudent to lay in an extra case of food and maybe another couple of dozen candles. Just in case. Because even if nothing happens it’s like having insurance. Very cheap insurance to guarantee your survival over a bad patch. Whether the disaster happens to be Y2K,or going through a bad winter, like a couple of years ago, with the flood waters rising above the 500 year flood level, or a sustained blizzard or the long overdue earthquake actually strikes. Fill in the blanks for whatever disaster happens to strike.

THE DOOR: Let’s go back to your sources of information. You said witches are very eclectic and choose from a smorgasbord of spiritual ideas, borrowing from any and all existing religions. Yet there are these rituals that you speak of and I assume they go back a long ways.

THE BEAR: They are an attempt to reconstruct from fragments of oral tradition, which is all that we have left after the burning times.

THE DOOR: So there were books that were written and burned? During which period?
THE BEAR: No, no not books that were written, oral traditions that were handed down from high priestess to student. Often times from Mother to daughter or from Father to son. I know a few people who claim a family tradition of witchcraft. They are called Famtrad for short. Family traditional witches have a certain body of lore, which they don’t teach to anybody outside of that family. They claim the lore was handed down from generation to generation. These people are very hard to get to talk about any of this.

THE DOOR: Why?

THE BEAR: Because, the penalty for revealing this was usually a short trip to being burned at the stake. So what we do have in the way of modern witchcraft are fragments of oral tradition, which are handed down in story. Discovered by people like Gerald Bruce O’Gardiner, who wrote about witchcraft for the first time, in modern times, in 1950.

THE DOOR: What was the title of the book?

THE BEAR: He originally wrote a book called “High Magic”, by the pen name Seire. Then he wrote a couple of other books on modern day witchcraft, which you can find in major libraries and occasionally you’ll find in large bookstores, like Powell’s, here in Portland. Gerald Bruce O’Gardiner is credited with being sort of the father of the modern resurgence of witchcraft.

THE DOOR: He was a witch himself?

THE BEAR: He was a practicing witch himself. He claimed that he had been introduced and initiated into Wicca by a family traditional witch in England.

THE DOOR: How many witches are there worldwide would you say?

THE BEAR: Impossible to estimate. In the United States I’ve heard figures anywhere from 100,000-600,000.

THE DOOR: So way under a million.

THE BEAR: I’ve talked to Z Budapest who is another very well known figure in the witchcraft world. She is a refugee from Hungary. She got out of Hungary after the 1956 Soviet invasion, when she was 16 years old. She feels that with family traditionalists it’s impossible to make an accurate estimation worldwide.

THE DOOR: Is there any sort of Wiccan governing structure? Do you ever combine forces for a specific purpose and how?

THE BEAR: It depends on the issue for example on the Web you will find the coalition for religious freedom that is run by an attorney in Pennsylvania, who is also a practicing, witch. You will find the WADL (Witches Anti Discrimination League). That is another long running pagan religion organization. Locally we have the nine houses of Gaia and many of the groups listed in the community directory will be able to turn you on to additional groups, which they are local chapters of or have a loose working relationship with.

THE DOOR: What about you specifically? When and what were the circumstances of your becoming a witch?

 

 

THE BEAR: I began my spiritual pursuit when I was between 13 & 15 and decided consciously to actually stop being a good Catholic kid, according to my mom.

THE DOOR: Mom should know.

THE BEAR: By the age of 17 I completely severed all ties with the Catholic Church and really began an active pursuit of my own spiritual traditions. I became interested in Zen Buddhism. I read a lot of works by David Reps, who is an American Zen Buddhist.

THE DOOR: How did you get interested in your spiritual pursuit initially?

THE BEAR: As I became more of an adult I began to realize that what I had been taught as the answers were not complete answers. Somebody was holding something back. There were things happening that did not make sense. For example, the teaching and decimation of the Catholic Church is that this is the be all and end all of solution. This is the one possible answer, this explains everything, and it’s not only ridiculous, it’s a mortal sin to start inquiring any further. Well the more education I got, especially by the time I got into college and started taking courses in philosophy, anthropology and other things that you normally don’t get taught in Jr. High School, I began to realize that there were a lot more answers, and also a lot more questions, than the Catholic Church had been willing to teach me as a kid. I became interested in witchcraft in the early 70’s and was initiated into witchcraft in 1975. So I’ve been a practicing pagan for almost a quarter of a century now.

THE DOOR: How old are you now.

THE BEAR: Lets see, what year is this? 51.

THE DOOR: How have other religions treated Paganism, Witchcraft, etc.? Whether Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, whatever, in countries like India, Japan or Saudi Arabia. Do they have any sort of policy against it?

THE BEAR: As a rule in a Muslim country, today for example, you are technically allowed to have a book of your own particular religion. For example Christians are theoretically allowed to bring in a Bible. However, Islam in practical terms can be very, very intolerant about public celebrations of anything other than Islam. To an extent, I found that in the brief visit that I made to Israel, I found that attitude also applied to a nation, which had based itself upon the Jewish religion. To a lesser extent you may find that in other countries such as Japan, which as you pointed out is officially Shintoist, but which also has a large Buddhist population. The Buddhist countries however, such as Thailand are generally quite open and accepting of a wide variety of other religions. I spent two years in Saudi Arabia, which gave me a good up close look at a fundamentalistic religious theocracy, in 1980-82.

THE DOOR: Why were you there?

THE BEAR: I was on contract, as a computer technician and light equipment maintenance technician, with a company installing a medical computer system. The first one to go into Abha, the capital of the Asir Highlands, in Southwest Saudi Arabia.

THE DOOR: Ah yes, one of our favorite places. What were your observations and conclusions?

THE BEAR: I had a chance to see what Islam is like from the inside, up close and personal. I went, that’s interesting. When I came back to the United States it also gave me very sharp appreciation about what it is like to live in a free country, as opposed to what it is like to live in a theocracy. Then I began working very seriously on the idea of promoting in whatever humble way that I could the notion of getting people to use their thinking of spirituality in terms of not sacrificing their souls to God, but using it as a vehicle of personal liberation, on a level that has not been normally experienced before. Most questions of liberation politics at that time had been political not economic. I wanted to expand the realm, because I believe very strongly that the spiritual element is precisely where questions of freedom are decided, and that any spiritual tradition that emphasizes freedom is one worth looking at. That tied very well into my training and experience in Wicca.

THE DOOR: What about Jesus’s statement in the Gospel of John concerning knowledge of the truth being the catalyst for freedom?

THE BEAR: First of all, that’s an example of something that a Wiccan, or Pagan, or Buhhdist, or Hindu or somebody else might find to be very true, because it is true whether or not it’s in the Bible, Koran, Torah, Bagavad Gita or any other sacred text. In other words you do not accept something that’s true simply because of the authority figure attached to it you accept it as true because it checks out. It checks out and it happens to ring true. It’s something that you can rely on. In the case of Wicca, the idea is that you are responsible for your spirituality. You are responsible for putting yourself through the training and discipline.

THE DOOR: Somebody had to train or at least get you pointed in the right direction occasionally. Who was that?

THE BEAR: The lady who inducted me into Wicca is living on the Oregon coast right now. She’s in her 60’s. She was a very good friend, who was a practicing witch for a number of years. She initiated me into the Wicca tradition as a Gardinarian witch.

THE DOOR: Gardinarian, is that like a denomination?

THE BEAR: Gerald Bruce O’Gardiner established a tradition of witchcraft through his books and through his students, who all went on to teach other witches. That’s why Gardiner is regarded as the father of modern witchcraft.
THE DOOR: Just like John Wesley is the father of Methodism or even the first Pope?

THE BEAR: Not like the pope, more like John the Baptist. He was a voice crying in the wilderness to make clear the path.

THE DOOR: So then, is there a Messiah coming?

THE BEAR: No. That whole Messiah trip, you have to; again this is the trap of Orthodox Christianity and the mindset. Christians are very guilt driven. They believe that we’re guilty and that the Messiah died for our sins, he’s gonna come back, and that sins will be washed away. This whole sin, guilt, fear trip is something that is very particular to the Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is not something that has any parallel with the normal pagan religions that you’ll find elsewhere in the world.

THE DOOR: So, you don’t have any guilt problems?

THE BEAR: No. We don’t have a guilt problem as far as original sin and the whole concept of sin, because we have a sense of right and wrong.

THE DOOR: Then you believe in free will?

THE BEAR: Yes, as a matter of fact I believe that the free will we exercise directly creates the manifestation of the universe that we experience. In other words, free will is the way that we approach the limitless facets of the diamond. Which facet we choose to look at, that is the exercise of our free will.

THE DOOR: What about good and evil?

THE BEAR: I believe in the “as ye sow, so shall ye reap” type of approach, or looking at it from the viewpoint of other people: “By their fruits ye shall know them”.

THE DOOR: That sounds familiar. What if you were put in a situation where you were forced to do something that was evil in order to survive? As an example you embezzled some money from your work to avoid bankruptcy. How would you view this?

THE BEAR: You would have to look at the harm done and the total dynamic of who was doing what. Who benefited from it, who lost from it?

THE DOOR: So you’re advocating relativism?
THE BEAR: In my personal book I’d say that relativistic ethics are probably about the only ethics that you actually can apply to the real world. Because the exact same action in 12 different environments and circumstances could have 12 different evaluations and 12 different consequences. For example killing someone: “Thou shalt not kill”. The Bible says, according to Billy Graham and some other Fundamentalist ministers “Thou shalt not murder”. Lets take it at the face value that most people are familiar with. “Thou shalt not kill.” Okay, I teach armed self-defense as a certified pistol instructor. I have an Oregon concealed handgun licensee. I have one of the first 2000 licensees issued in the state for 10 years now. I have come close to dropping the hammer on 4 maybe 5 people in the last 10 years. I also work security so that ups my exposure to situations. Do I feel happy about the prospect of taking a life? No. Would I hesitate to take a life if in my estimation that became necessary? No, because at this point I’ve rehearsed it and studied the issue and I’m aware of the full dynamics of actions, contributing factors, and the repercussions, which would flow from that, to be able to widen the game so to speak. In other words I don’t look at just the killing itself, but everything that led up to the killing, the killing and the results that flowed from the killing, as part of an integrated dynamic. All of which have to be looked at. If for example the person I encountered happened to be a career felon and I didn’t kill them, I feel that I would share in the moral blame that would accrue from every criminal act in the future that, that person would commit.

THE DOOR: I guess you would support capital punishment then?

THE BEAR: In certain circumstances. Again, there have been too many cases where capital punishment has been to hastily applied or applied to the wrong person. That’s legalized murder.

THE DOOR: In a case like John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahlmer, who have committed heinous crimes, yet are indifferent to them, and may even be psychologically incapable of complying with societies laws or morality. What would your verdict be?

THE BEAR: In my book that person has volunteered for the death penalty.

THE DOOR: Interesting. Let’s go back to guilt for a minute. According to Freudian psychology human beings are motivated by guilt stemming from suppressed thoughts and experiences, ranging from infantile masturbation to oedipal fantasies and beyond. How do you view this?

THE BEAR: Freudian guilt is the product of an essentially Christian culture.

THE DOOR: So then if there were no Christianity there would be no Freud?

THE BEAR: Without Christianity there would be no Freud. There would be no need for a Freud.

THE DOOR: What about Jung?
THE BEAR: Jung is a different case. Jung very much focused on archetypes. He believed that people regardless of culture or background felt and experienced certain spiritual truths in much the same way. It’s simply the the symbolism and the language by or through which they interpreted that transmortal experience varied from person to person and culture to culture, and there’s good argument for that.

THE DOOR: So then in some cases, as you’ve already stated you’re in agreement with certain parts or pieces of different religions and philosophies but you don’t have any particular set structure, except the book you mentioned by Gardiner?

THE BEAR: Even that has been extensively modified.

THE DOOR: Okay, lets put it another way. If somebody wants to become a Christian what they do is find a church. Next they ask to speak with the Pastor, they tell him “I want to become a Christian.” Next the minister will tell them whatever that denominational formula requires for them to become a good Christian.

THE BEAR: Accent on the word formula. It’s a very external structure imposed. You see in the founding days of Christianity.

THE DOOR: Yeah, but how do you do that with Witchcraft? Let’s forget about Christianity for the moment. How would anyone even begin to look? Are their any witch ministers, clerics, priests, priestesses etc.?

THE BEAR: In some cases. Again study the list of organizations in the directory I gave you and ask for some basic information. You’ll find a huge range of responses. Some people who practice paganism and witchcraft adopt or create a very hierarchical structure. There will be initiates, 1st degree witches, 2nd degree witches and 3rd degree witches.

THE DOOR: Is this group called a coven?

THE BEAR: Yes, a coven. They will have the kind of formal structure that you’re talking about. Some people function best in that type of formal structure. Other people are solitary witches; they will have nothing to do with a coven. In fact they will often times have only a few years of training, or they will be entirely self taught. Some people find that they adhere to a particular divinity. In fact I’ve talked to some witches who have actually had an intense visualization of some goddess or god figure, totally unexpectedly, without anything in their background to predicate that, that is the goddess or god figure to whom they would give their allegiance. Others, like me are syncretic or eclectic. We look and we find things that are true in many different god forms, and many different pantheons in many different disciplines including religions that have very little if anything to do with Witchcraft, such as Christianity.

THE DOOR: An evangelical Christian would call these visualizations of gods and goddesses a demonic experience. From a Jungian perspective then you would have had an archetypal experience. However, putting that aside for the moment, what good are these experiences?
THE BEAR: I’m relating them to how people see the truth. Some people need and depend upon a very rigid structure. They’re going, okay I have jumped through these particular hoops, I’ve taken this particular training, I must be doing this right. That’s the particular structure with which they approach the universe.

THE DOOR: Then there’s the Zen Buhhdist approach where you have to come to a point where you know nothing.

THE BEAR: That’s my point, everything is illusion, it’s all a matter of will. Read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The opening chapter is essentially a recitation of about how everything is a matter of the viewpoint that you choose or allow yourself to default to. What is the Ultimate reality?

THE DOOR: Please tell us.

THE BEAR: Well, from a mortal viewpoint you will find as many different answers as you’ll find mortals. The whole purpose of the show in the practice of the show in the practice of paganism, that I personally adhere to is, by their fruits you shall know them.

THE DOOR: Where have we heard that before?

THE BEAR: If somebody is on a particular path that reads well upon them, they’re bright eyed, bushy tailed, happy, productive and a benefit to the people around them. You can tell by their body language, posture, tone of voice, how they relate and how they handle themselves in their relationships, whether they are a healthy or not healthy individual. Then I don’t really care what the name of the religious structure of the spirituality is that you hang on it. Sahheed Hamid for example is a Black Muslim. He is also a friend. He has been a friend of my families and mine for more than 20 years now. He is probably as far away from my particular spiritual orientation as you could possibly get. In that he’s African American, he’s a Muslim practitioner, he is very loyal to his faith and has found a huge amount of benefit in Islam. I’ve had him on my show and we’ve spoken of this at length. The commonality that we experience however, is not one of the same ritual, or the same name of God or even the same practice of spirituality. The commonality we see, is that each of us recognize that the other is on a path which is good for us, because we are benefiting the lives of those around us.

THE DOOR: What occupation do you work in to pay the bills?

THE BEAR: I’m in the security field right now. I’ve been trained and licensed by the State of Oregon as a private security advisor site supervisor for a local security company. I’m also a certified pistol instructor and I do self-defense training, as well as working with a martial arts school.

THE DOOR: So you are proficient in all these self defense techniques?

THE BEAR: Yes, I believe in the concept of personal empowerment.
THE DOOR: So then witchcraft isn’t pacifistic?

THE BEAR: Witchcraft is, in that most people are what I would call bunny huggers. They are very pro-ecology and pro-animal rights. Their lifestyle and mindset reflects this. Ninety nine out of a hundred would not know which end of a firearm goes bang.
THE DOOR: You already said that you supported capital punishment if the crime warranted it. What about abortion?

THE BEAR: I come down on the side of “free choice,” with the proviso that any man who attempts to pass judgment on what any woman does with her body is showing perhaps more bravery than sense. Women, I’ve noticed, get into one form of Paganism or another because they’re drawn to the empowering aspects of spirituality that emphasizes the pre-eminence of feminine over masculine power, the Goddess over God; Witches like Z Budapest or Starhawk in San Francisco have strong opinion on the subject, which they’ve written books about. At the same time, Pagans disagree about abortion probably as much as they disagree about vegetarianism, or any other political subject. Sienna, a Witch friend of mine in Vancouver, who own Laughing Bird Books and teaches classes on Witchcraft, said, “Getting Pagans to agree on ANYTHING is like herding cats.”

THE DOOR: Very interesting. While were on politically controversial subjects How about drug usage to enhance the spiritual dimension, much like Native Americans and other regional aboriginal peoples use conscious expanding substances, such as mescaline, psilosybin or marijuana in their rituals?

 

 

THE BEAR: I know of no Pagans who use drugs as part of ritual; raising the “Cone of Power” requires discipline, the ability to visualize clearly, and the ability to coordinate and work well with other in the Circle—all of which are skills which are damaged or defeated by drugs, not enhanced by them. The kind of “high” you get from any pharmaceutical means that it’s the pharmaceutical that’s working—not you; so, whatever “power” you think you’re generating, is strictly a chemical-based delusion. True, there ARE some ethnic groups whose spiritual traditions involve psychedelics like peyote and mescaline—but as their “medicine men” and “medicine women” will tell you, it takes literally years of work, training, and discipline (there’s that word again), studying as an apprentice under a master of some sort, before you can safely and effectively use drugs as a tool for the controlled raising and directing of spiritual or Magickal “Power” of any sort.
Unfortunately, in this day and age of instant gratification, there are too may teenyboppers who’ve seen The Craft or The Blair Witch Project, picked up a book, and decided that they’re “really” Witches and so want to be casting spells, etc.—and right now. Since they’re used to getting high, they figure, “Why not?” and start to “experiment” with ritual Magick and various drugs. However, teenagers will be teenagers, and may have to learn the hard way that drugs don’t “improve” anything you do that’s at all important—including raising Power and working Magick. This is not to say that Neo-Pagans are all prudes and teetotalers. Some are; others aren’t, to varying degrees, just like the population at large. I know of one Pagan who drinks, smokes tobacco, AND smokes pot; his wife smokes tobacco and pot, but doesn’t drink. Another Pagan friend of mine drinks occasionally, but doesn’t smoke anything at all. The basic rule, again, is what we know as the Wiccan Rede:
“Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill;
An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will.”
When you couple that with the Three-fold Law—that what you do, will rebound upon you three times, good returning for good and evil returning for evil—you’ll find that most Neo-pagans (both drug-users and “straight) just don’t abuse, misuse, or over-indulge in drugs of any sort. There’s no point to it, and some heavy dues to pay for screwing up, so why bother?

THE DOOR: Do you believe in God?

THE BEAR: A divinity? Yes. God in term of Jehovah or Yahweh? No.

THE DOOR: Do you believe in a personal God?

THE BEAR: Myself, I’d have to say no. I believe in a trans-mortal something, but it’s bigger than I am and I haven’t got the means to put a handle on it. Let alone define it and label it.

THE DOOR: What about the devil?

THE BEAR: The devil? Satan? Prince of evil? Christian concept. Anti-God. I gave that up when I gave up the church.

 

What If God Was One Of Us?

“What If God Was One Of Us?” was a top 40 radio hit in 1996 and catapulted Joan Osborne into the position of being one of Americas top female vocalists. It was a time when female vocalists were making as big an impact on the music charts as their male counterparts. Artists like Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow Sarah McLachlan brought the feminine side of transcendence back into the musical mix like it was when folk and rock touched through the music of Bob Dylan and the Byrds. Back then artists like Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Carole King represented the feminine mystique.

So when “One of Us” hit the charts against all odds, because of its religious content and message, it drew attention like the siren’s did Odyseus. Eric Bazillian of the 1980’s new wave band the Hooters wrote the song to capture the heart of a girl, who later became his wife. The story reminded me of how Randy Stonehill wrote “King of Hearts” as a result of failing to write a love song directed to the girl of his dreams and later changed the direction to the almighty diety that most people call God, The Wholly Other or the unspeakable glory known in the Bible as the Tetragrammaton. Bazillian and another former Hooter, Rob Hyman discovered Osborne singing in a bar and decided to record her, so they put together a band that they performed in and recorded an album that they primarily wrote the songs for. The album showcased Osborne’s incredible vocal range that established her as one of the best female vocalist’s in the country, if not the world.

Osborne is a blues singer, but at the same time she has an expanded perspective on music that delves into a spiritual dimension as deep as gospel, but from an Eastern perspective. Even before she caused a theological firestorm, when “One of Us” became a top 40 hit and she got 5 Grammy nominations, she was a student of Sufi devotional music, called qawwali. Sufism is Islamic in origin, resulting from 11th century Persians immigrating to the region that became known as Pakistan, but was then India. It is mystical and introspective in nature and the purpose of the music is to achieve transcendence beyond sexuality. That was back in 1996, when “One of Us” was still a top 40 radio hit.

So now fast forward 18 years and Osborne isn’t backed up by her bar band that accompanied her for her Relish tour, but the Holmes Brothers a black gospel group that she helped produce albums for as well as appearing on them and vice versa. The Holmes Brothers took the stage and performed “Amazing Grace” as their opening number and then did 2 others before Osborne joined them. Once she hit the stage and opened her mouth, the heavens opened and she covered everything from the Grateful Dead to Ike and Tina Turner, with as much passion and transcendence as Ustad Fateh Ali Khan.

Homepage

Utube videos of “One of Us”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc_QQIPQ2e8

 

Jesus Rocks the World

Los Lonely Boys

Once again I am going to change the concept of this blog as it evolves just like my life did. Everything takes on a life of its own if you let it, or should I say, if you choose to walk down all the paths that open up to you after you knock on their portals for entry. My path took me from rock & roll to only Christian music and then as the heathen rock & rollers became born again back to rock & roll again. So why not present reports of secular concerts and events on this blog as well as Christian ones.

This past weekend I have been covering the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon and as we all know, the blues has its roots in gospel. In the early days of the 20th century many blues artists were ministers and sang gospel for the Lord on Sunday after singing blues for the devil on Saturday night. One of the first groups that I saw perform at the festival were one of the headliners, Los Lonely Boys. The band is made up of Henry Garza lead guitar, Jojo Garza bass and Ringo Garza drums. They rocked the house down with their powerful set and later performed with Los Lobos during the latter’s set.

The band is from Texas and was their fathers backup band from childhood into their teens. They’ve won a Grammy and had a hit record on the charts called “Heaven,” off their first album. To find out more about them, check out their website at: http://loslonelyboys.com/ For information about the Waterfront Blues Festival, go to: http://www.waterfrontbluesfest.com/ .

Taxi Guru

Taxi Guru, a new taxi cab website that just published one of my taxi cab articles. Their other site taxi fare finder published one of my articles last year. They are all based on my blog at the transcendent taxi cab.

http://www.taxiguru.com/

http://www.taxiguru.com/cabbie-with-a-camera/

 

 

The Transcendent Taxicab Blog

I was contacted by a taxi cab website about my taxi cab blog that I began in 2009. It is called the “Transcendent Taxi Cab” and, even though I no longer drive a taxi, they wanted to feature it on their web site, which is “Taxi Fare Finder” located at www.taxifarefiner.com  The exact link to the feature about my website is at http://www.taxifarefinder.com/newsroom/2013/12/05/the-transcendent-taxi-ride-a-trip-with-a-minister-cabbie/

The Talbot Brothers

©Bob Gersztyn
©Bob Gersztyn

Sometimes there are events, places, names, and people that come up in your life more than once, with long periods of time lapsing in between meetings. One of these people, or should I say, two, are Terry and John Michael Talbot. The first time that I saw them perform together was sometime in 1970, when I was still living in Detroit, Michigan and its suburbs, Warren and Birmingham. My girlfriend and I used to go to the East Town theater on Harper, on the east side of Detroit. The East Town and the Grande Ballroom, which was on the west side of Detroit were venues comparable to the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms in San Francisco. All the new music that was exploding out of the late 1960s counter culture scene in the USA and Great Britain played at these venues, and Kathy and I were there each week to witness them.

Some of the opening acts that played before groups like Traffic, Alice Cooper, and Steve Miller were Glass Harp, Mylon Lefevre, and Mason Proffit. Mason Proffit was led by the two previously mentioned brothers, Terry and John Michael Talbot. They were of a genre that took what Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers had created out of the merger between country, folk, and rock in the early and mid 1960s and made something new of it, and later the Eagles perfected it. The Talbot Brothers were Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone in coon skin caps, singing about justice, morality, and social issues, like brotherhood, love, and peace. Nothing new for the counter culture, but a message that was not always well received by apathetic stoned audiences, especially when Terry would harangue them about their lack of enthusiasm.

In June 1971, we moved from Detroit to Los Angeles, and found the venues that featured our favorite music artists in the City of Angels, and its suburbs. From the Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood to the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach we hit all the spots. When we hit the Golden Bear to see Jo Jo Gunn, Mason Proffit was the opening act. After watching their set, during the intermission I ran into Terry Talbot and talked to him about the difference between crowds in Detroit and L.A.

A week later, I became a sold out, born again Jesus freak and ended up destroying all my albums, and stopped attending secular rock concerts. At the same time some of the secular artists that I listened to committed their lives to Jesus, and began recording what was then called Jesus music. Terry and John Michael Talbot were among the ones to do this, when they signed with Billy Ray Hearn’s Sparrow Records, in 1974. It took a while for them to figure out where they belonged in the Jesus movement, but once they did, they moved forward without hesitation.

They both released solo albums and a couple of albums together, then John Michael freaked out the Protestant religious community by becoming a Franciscan monk and eventually establishing a Roman Catholic hermitage that was sanctioned by the Pope in Rome. After a period of insanity in my own life where I travelled around the country with my family, trying to find God’s will and perfect place, I ended up in Salem, Oregon.

The first Sunday that I attended New Hope Foursquare in 1986, I did a double take as I saw that the worship leader was Terry Talbot, who was the most energetic and enthusiastic worship leader I had at that time experienced. With only an acoustic guitar and his voice, he led the congregation in song. When he played “Lion of Judah” my heart cried and I lifted my hands in worship to the living God and Jesus Christ His Son. A year or two later Terry invited his brother John to come play at New Hope, and he did. Then Terry moved to Arkansas, to live, with his wife and children, in the Hermitage that John Michael founded

I eventually wrote articles about Terry and John Michael Talbot for Encyclopedias and books about contemporary Christian music. The articles included the brothers’ entire history from the early days before Mason Proffit, to their solo careers through the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century.

These are a couple of shots that I took over the decades. Mason Proffit is at the Golden Bear in July 1971, when I was learning how to use my first 35mm camera. I was hand holding the camera with the f/stop on my Petri rangefinder wide open at a shutter speed of 2 seconds, which blurred. Now I sometimes shoot images like this on purpose for creative reasons. The other shot was of John Michael Talbot from a 2005 concert in Eugene, Oregon, at a Catholic church. I wrote about them in Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music, that was published in 2012 by Praeger.