"With an old and tried swordsman like myself, knowledge of the use of his weapon is everything; but with a young Hotspur of your temper, strength and energy go for much."
- Arthur Conan Doyle (Micah Clarke)
Internet experts state that in the early prehistoric days of mankind, when men were men, and women could have as many boyfriends as they felt like having, climate change created an extinction event that wiped out all of the man eating dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers, who in their hungry heyday made sure that no human being lived longer than, say, ten years. This removed one of the biggest reasons that cavemen and cavewomen didn’t last very long; leaving only disease, starvation, minor injuries, warfare, and marriage.
The longer life spans created new social phenomena, such as villages, condos, Kings and Emperors, celebrities famous for being famous, organized warfare, government, poor people, and of course, reality shows.
However, the most pervasive sociological innovation was the “Generation Gap,” as it was called in the 60s. The first recorded instance of the younger generation pissing off their parents and calling them old farts was in Ancient Greece, the first civilization that had an alphabet that didn’t consist of pictures of animals and Gods.
...the earliest travel blogger...
As recorded in a fragment of Book 13, Page 2, paragraph 10, of the ancient Lost Gospels Of Murgatroyd discovered in the recycle bin of a Chicago Hair Salon, the legendary Greek travel blogger, Herodotus O'Grady, describes an inscription on a newly manufactured vase that reads, “Achilles, Eiste ena palio fart," which was later unearthed in 1994 by an Ebay seller who found it at an flea market sale in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Some Internet experts claim that the purported vintage Greek vase is actually a bottle of pressed virgin olive oil bottled in New Jersey in 2010, and of dubious quality, but as we all know, Ebay has strict measures in place to prevent the sale of fraudulent items, so the claims of the seller can be taken at face value. [citation needed, please define "at face value"]
...the generation gap...
The Generation Gap has certain aspects that haven’t changed throughout mankind’s history, and the most egalitarian is that everyone gets to be the vivacious, know it all whippersnappers who are sneered at by the cynical, beaten down by life old farts who bridle when their achievements aren’t treated on the same level as Taylor Swift winning a Grammy.
Then in few years, longer if the older generation tries to extend adolescence with cosmetic surgery and asserting that 50 is the new 20, the young snots are confronted by a new crop of sass mouth delinquents who can eat junk food and not gain weight, and aren’t aware that the Beatles were the greatest thing since sliced bread and adult diapers.
This generational conflict was, at one time, muted by social controls such as teaching respect for elders to young minds not yet able to produce audible cuss words, corporal punishment, making kids stand in corners or bedrooms without supper, cutting allowances, and Lifetime Movies, but history has proven that it’s a losing battle, and time is on the side of the pups that gradually become aware of their awesome power and love for death metal music. Commercial advertisers, who follow the more sensible outlook of money grubbing, know all this, and focus on the younger demographic.
...childhood's end...
This blogger is aware that childhood and adolescence is a time for discovery, wonder, sexual awakening, and the assumption of greater responsibilities in an ever changing world, but that’s all been beaten to death by Hollywood and the media, and is boring even to the young target audience that now prefers the joys of making millions on social media, eating various chemicals in Tik Tok challenges, anonymous Internet trolling, and cancelling artists for the slightest reason.
Though in all fairness, this sort of thing has been going on since the Ancient Greeks wiped out the city of Troy just because someone stole a King’s wife. If Achilles, the big stud warrior of the Trojan War, had paid more attention to his brand, we’d be seeing his face on cereal boxes. Todays young heroes are much more saavy.
...Jack London and Tom Wolfe...
Two definitive stories about the Generation Gap, besides my latest Punk Rock satire, "The Quitters" (retitled from the original Electric Fog Factory, see the included first chapter later in this blog entry), is Jack London’s classic “A Piece Of Steak,” which covers the concept from a Darwinian perspective, and Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” which has a more sociological angle, and is one of the definitive studies of the formative years of the Baby Boomer generation.
These works delineate the two classic points of view in any generational type story; the older viewpoint of experience and wisdom, and the younger theme of discovery and exploration.
...a piece of steak...
Jack London’s short story, published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1909, is about an aging boxer named Tom King, who in his younger days had been a dominant fighter, flush with cash that was spent as soon as it was earned. The scene opens with Tom eating a humble meal of bread and gravy, that his wife had to borrow the flour for, and who sits by and watches, as there's only enough for one. The two children have been sent to bed early in the hopes that they wouldn't notice that dinner was being skipped.
The scene isn’t as dire as it might seem, as Tom has been given the opportunity to fight in a winner take all match, with a prize of 30 quid, which would change his fortunes for the better. That sparse meal is a final effort by the family to send him off in the best condition possible, though he still feels hungry afterwards. He grumbles that even a single piece of steak would make a huge difference. A passage about trying to pretend that his pipe has tobacco adds to the picture of destitution.
London, as usual, does a good job of creating a vivid picture of the fighter’s inner thoughts as he heads for the match, mixing seamlessly with the details of a once vibrant life and career. The account of Tom's struggle to defeat the younger boxer is textbook live action narrative, a superb piece of writing.
Like many of London’s stories, it’s about how age slows down the vitality of youth, and evolves into guile and skill gained from experience. However, London’s message is consistent, you can slow down Father Time, but in the end, you’ll always lose.
...acid test...
Tom Wolfe's book, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," about Ken Kesey and his Pranksters, has a youthful outlook, that of exploration and rebellion, though it's a complex, detailed chronicle of the rise and fall of a movement. I've discussed this book in an earlier blog, but here will focus on a different aspect of the story.
The tale isn't just about a generation gap, one could say that Ken Kesey's aim was to build a new society based on the widespread use of acid to, for lack of a better term, free people's minds.
In fact, one of the purposes of the "Acid Tests" was, as one of the leaders put it, to learn "how to function on acid." As history has shown, the end result was psychedelic style rock concerts, complete with light shows to simulate the acid trip experience and of course, make a lot of money, which is the American Way.
...intentions..
Kesey's intention wasn't to create a new class of millionaires in the entertainment industry. Tom Wolfe said, in a later interview, that Kesey's (and his followers) early experience with acid created an ecstacy type experience that was common to new religions, though perhaps a better term is revelation or paradigm.
Kesey's group, The Merry Pranksters, did make a sincere attempt to create a new, freer society based on a sort of nonauthority, where the leaders suggested rather than gave orders (much like most Native American tribes).
The movement was bankrolled by Kesey, who used the royalties from his book, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, so most of the problems in creating a new society, like food production and other such things weren't a factor. Everyone just followed his lead and embarked on a series of journeys and spiritual exercises, albeit with a lot of partying, sex, and the occasional hazing of squares and other unhip types. In the end, the whole trip did end up depending on one leader, whose rise and fall determined the fate of the Pranksters.
I'm oversimplifying, of course, the interpretation of the events can range from cynical to florid romanticism, and Wolfe masterfully navigates a middle course in his book.
...opinion...
My opinion is that Kesey was on to something, but it takes a lot of moral courage to reject the system and to live outside of it. Basically his followers eventually chose safer courses and built a society based on an outward change in appearances but followed the time honored Western principles of structure, commerce and heirarchy.
Another way to put it was that Kesey was heading in a metaphysical direction and was willing to make mistakes or explore what could be dead ends for the sake of enlightenment, which someone from an Eastern culture would understand, but not a Westerner used to leaders who at least behave like infallible winners of the game.
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe is an examination of a youthful, if not young, attempt to supplant an older system, which one could say was a partial victory that created some change but in the end was as far from the original conception as the Catholic Church was from what Jesus preached.
Both works are worth reading for more than that idea. Both have passages that would be considered politically incorrect now, but any perspective from a writer who has the ability to stand outside of the box and describe what's going on inside is worth reading and learning from.
...the rise and fall...
Perhaps the real common thread with the London and Wolfe's stories isn't the struggle between young and old, but about the age old cycle of creation and decay.
It's a cycle that's going to be present in the Al and Ivy book, and in The Quitters.
Author Michael Crichton noted this in "Eaters Of The Dead," not to mention Wolfe and others, that this process isn't one big discreet cycle that goes on to the next like history books tend to imply, but of many that run concurrently. When the Model T Ford car began to appear on roadways, there were still plenty of horse drawn vehicles still in use. One cycle was just beginning, another was still in it's prime.
A smaller example in 1977 was in fashion; punks wore straight leg pants when flared bell bottoms were still in vogue.
...a tapestry of colors...
In the The Quitters serial, you'll see this same tapestry of cycles unfolding; 60s music had become big business with all of the usual corruption, but musicians also found a multitude of opportunities in the expanded genres like metal, disco, and punk.
That is, if you could change with the times. I saw all this in the Mabuhay Gardens. There wasn't this monochrome picture of punks with spiked hair. The crowd clearly had a mix of punks, tourists, leather and stud types, Surfers, cross dressers and trans (mostly from the Finnochio's scene across the street but SF had plenty all over), all manner of eccentrics, and those still living in, or in the process of transitioning out of the 60s.
...the early days...
The early chapters of The Quitters unfold over a single night, but by the end you should have a nice picture of the SF punk scene (as opposed to a long descriptive narrative more suitable for a history book).
As the book progresses, you'll see that what happened in the club (actually a restaurant) was part of the teeming nightlife and endless cycles of change in San Francisco. In fact, many of the current residents will barely recognize what The City was like back then.
The episodes are set in the SF Punk scene, but about music and the business as a whole. The motivations of the musicians there, and the fans, were no different than any other genre. There'll be some change when the scene shifts to Southern California, and it's obvious that there's some parochial attitude due to geography and lifestyle.
Any author has to serve truth, so the picture I'm going to paint will have to be complete, warts and all, with both saints and sinners. Otherwise it won't be a human story, just more myth making, which really just serves the business end, and gives no insight as to why over 40 years later, the music created back then still survives and is loved by fans of that era.
...Electric Fog details and preview...
The first nine chapters (called episodes) of my serial novel, "The Quitters" are now live on Amazon Vella.
The basic format of this serial, which are called episodes on the site, are short chapters of about 1000 words each. After some experimentation, it seemed that was the ideal length for an episode, and a good way to view the story is to see it as a weekly situation comedy or drama, but with a read time of 5-10 minutes each. I'll adjust the length depending on how readers respond. The site doesn't record how many people read it (except on the author's dashboard), so the only actual visible stats are follows and "thumbs up," with the latter appearing to be the most important in terms of public perception.
Feedback is important on the Vella platform (all of Amazon actually), so any "thumbs up" will be deeply appreciated.
The primary category is humor, since it is a satire, so I wasn't bound by genre conventions like in mystery or romance stories, but the type of humor in this story will have to find it's audience, though I can say, if you like the On The Road With Al And Ivy blog and understand it's humor, you'll like The Quitters. As far as a second category, it could fall into historical fiction, LGBT, or even adventure, but I'm going to rotate that around or not bother with it until I get a feel for what those categories mean in the Vella site. Those terms can mean different things depending on the audience.
The paid chapters start at the fourth, though Vella gives new readers 200 free tokens, which would take you well past halfway through the book.
Which is fine with me, my main concern is audience and not trying to profit so soon. A book about Punk Rock will be a slow burn, but readers will find that it's a story with real depth and insight about the era. The book will also cover 60s music, folk, jazz, 70s Rock, and events culminate at the now famous Sex Pistols concert at Winterland, which was both the apex, death, and rebirth of the Punk movement.
...all about fun...
I should note that the tone will be lighthearted, as I enjoyed my time as a Punk Rocker. Many of the facets of the scene were ripe for satire and parody, and since this is a humorous book, I've taken every opportunity to do so, but the main goal is entertainment.
Although the book will be set in the SF Punk scene, it's also a story with real characters and intended to relate to anyone who enjoys music or has artistic ambitions. The characters are not going to be cardboard caricatures or lampoons, and represent a wide range of personalities. You're going to see a lot of the characters change or develop more depth as the book progresses.
...some details about the band...
The main character is Nym, the bass player, who is the youngest member. Nym's personality will appear to be a mix of naïveté and optimism, which will be tested as events develop, and there's the prospect of cynicism developing as the real world begins to intrude. How and if that optimism survives in the face of adversity will be a central theme of the book.
The drummer is Hydie, who reminds Nym of an older sister, Ida, who is part of a theatre group, and in many ways is the defacto leader. She lives in Santa Cruz (California) with her girlfriend, who in 2022 would be referred to as her partner,
and represents both the female experience in the early punk days, and provide some insight why the beach community there became a haven for lesbian culture. There were a lot of gays in the punk scene, so her character isn't just an attempt to add diversity.
The titular leader is Roder, along with his pal, Quill, who are hard core surfers from the Santa Cruz scene. They are geniuses at self promotion, but whose singing talents fall considerably short. Both will provide a glimpse into the politics of the punk scene in San Francisco, and of the insular, but fascinating surf scene in California. Surfers were early fans and sympathizers of punk music.
The new lead guitarist is Jem, a hippie still sort of stuck in the 60s, but with the era's best qualities as readers will realize in the later chapters. He starts off looking like a real hippy dippy type, and seemingly lost in the charged atmosphere of the punk club, but his reasons for leaving 60s style rock will reasonate with anyone who's ever had to choose between growth and staying in a comfort zone. Through him, you'll see both the light and dark side of the 60s counterculture.
The first three chapters are free and can be read via the links below. Also, here's a small sample of the first episode:
The Quitters by Al Handa
A fun, entertaining story about a musician in the 1977 Punk Scene in San Francisco, loosely based on the author's experiences in the now legendary Mabuhay Gardens. The episodes will also reveal that many of the performers and fans were LGBT, Surfers, and from fringe subcultures, who all lived in a city that few residents in 2022 would recognize.
You're invited to treat the story as righteous truth or considerably less, but please do be entertained and thrilled as the events unfold here.
EPISODE ONE: Our Fifteen Minutes Of Fame Begins
Wednesday evening at the Buhay Gardens, I’m standing off the left of the stage with the rest of the band, waiting for Marley, the promoter of the punk shows, to arrive. It’s my first gig as the bass player, I had to switch over from guitar when the bassist quit last week. I’m not happy about it, but bass players are hard to find on short notice. The new guitarist, a long haired hippie guy named Jem, rehearsed with us for the first time yesterday.
Marley, a short guy who dresses like a 50s style beatnick out of North Beach, arrives and without looking to see if everyone’s here, starts talking. If you want to play here, you follow his timetable.
He says, "No one knows yet what’s good or bad in punk, so it doesn’t matter if the crowd cheers or boos, as long as there’s a strong reaction, and when your time’s up, the sound crew cuts the power, so don’t get cute and try to steal minutes from the next band."
He starts to jump onto the stage, but turns and adds, "A little advice, I don't know what you all want out of this, but whatever it is, the only thing that matters is you have 15 minutes to convince me to bring you back. Your future isn't in someday wanna be a star La La Land, it’s today, so be what you hope to become, right now."
Marly walks over to the mike to announce our group. My makeup's melting under the hot stage lights. It’s dripping into my eyes, so I wipe it off with my ripped tee. No new face I guess, but it’s OK, I'm still me even if the mask comes off. We don’t take our eyes off him, because the clock starts when he steps off.
Without asking for the crowd’s attention, he goes into his monologue,
“Welcome to the Buhay Gardens, San Francisco’s premier punk showcase! The first band tonight are the Quitters, it’s their first gig,” he smirks and pauses for the mosh pit regulars to begin heckling. After a few seconds to let the catcalls bloom into fuck you city, he adds, “The set runs exactly 15 minutes, which may be all the fame they deserve, so you poseurs who want to form a punk band, this handle might be available tomorrow. Help them live up to their lame name! The Quitters!”
End of excerpt...click link below to continue (for free of course)
The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:
There are earlier blog entries on the Delta Snake Review section of this site that aren't on the On The Road page:
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com
Cover Reveal For Hide In Plain Sight
This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, hopefully out sometime in 2022.
-Al Handa
The American Primitive Acoustic Collection by Handa-McGraw International can be streamed on all of the major services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and dozens of others.
The Music Of Handa-McGraw International can also be heard on the Electric Fog Factory on YouTube. You can hear the album, and dozens of unreleased cuts and demos, plus exclusive video of Ivy.
