Chapter 13 I can't really say that my efforts had any effect but shortly after his election, Nixon went to China and America no longer appeared to the rest of the world, "like a drunk in a bar trying to pick a fight with a Chinaman." I don't pretend to have had anything to do with Nixon's decision to go to China but it has always seemed rather coincidental. Nor can I say that the Beatles' hit "Revolution" was their answer to my request for their help in staging a world-wide "Paradise Pageant" but if it was, it shows that they didn't listen very carefully. What I said was not that I wanted a revolution but rather that I wanted evolution to be unhampered and occurring naturally at its own free pace. Anyway, be that as it may, the "Paradise Pageant" folded after the first and only local one, invaded and destroyed by this unknown (whoever he was) interloper posing as a hippie and exploiting, for his own personal gain, the hard work and sacrifice of all the kids and us locals. Yet I still can't help wondering what could have happened if millions of people had gotten together world wide to proclaim the earth as "the Garden of Paradise" and began insisting all nations treat it as though it was. One other larger scale event that I participated in was the first rock and folk festival in Monterey. Pat and I brought the "Space Bass" down there and set it up outside the arena/stage area in the open free space surrounding the main stage. We began playing and soon drummers and flute players began drifting in to join us. We started out having people play empty beer and pop cans like bongo drums. Soon there were several hundred participants in perfect music and we began to drown out the loud speakers from the stage. It was sensational. Lovely ladies in exotic costumes were dancing all around us, people were singing free style and chanting. Guys were dancing. The energy was monumental and the song lasted for almost three hours. It was a symphony of perfect music. I shall never forget it. After it ended, we were exhausted. Pat and I packed up and went home as the sun was setting. Another time I was up in San Francisco at a Santana's big band concert at the Fillmore (I think). I had my penny whistle with me and we found our way to a balcony box above and in front on one side of the stage. The band was really cooking. I started playing my brass penny whistle like a piccolo, riding high above the band with trills and obbligatos. They were coming out of giant speakers on the stage and I thought I was just playing for my own amusement, but it sounded pretty good to me. Shortly, I noticed some of the guys in the band looking up at the balcony trying to figure out where the flute was coming from. They were smiling so I kept it up and really got off. Another time I led a large group of players and a maybe twenty member chorus of men and women singing and playing a tune I composed. We were on an island in the Santa Cruz county park surrounded by a duck pond. The island was appropriately called "Duck Island." The band had some well known jazz musicians in it as well as many neophyte players from the Thursday night perfect music sessions. It was a very rewarding experience. I began producing thematic art shows. I had a show of portraits of women I had drawn; they were young women, middle-aged women, and old women, all friends of mine. It was shown at the Santa Cruz library which was serving as the Santa Cruz Art Museum. I drew a sketch of the rapids in the San Lorenzo River at the site of the police action and the nude bathing at the Holiday Cabins. Then someone in the logging trade brought me a ten inch slab cut out of the center of a mid-sized redwood tree that extended down to the root ball and had beautiful burl grain. The grain inspired me to transfer the drawing of the rapids, much enlarged, to the scale of the slab. Before I could do this I had to sand the surface smooth. That took me about six months of just sanding several days a week until I got it smooth enough to carve. I did this work on the back deck of the house across the street which my mother had bought and which I remodeled for her. When I finally had it smooth enough I put the drawing on it and then carved it out in relief with several dremel drills which would burn out after a few months of use. When the carving was done, I coated the face and sides and back of the slab with multiple coats of polyurethane. During this time the county had purchased the land the burnt down cabins had been on and a mansion adjacent to the property from which the complaints had come. The elderly owners had passed on and their heirs put the mansion and land up for sale. When I finished the carving I was offered a roofed over display cupola at the head of a nature walk, designed by Fred McPhearson, that wound down to the river and back. It stayed there until it was vandalized. Someone had taken it down and hidden it in the bushes nearby. Fred called me and told me the sculpture was missing. I went down and found it, undamaged, in the bushes near the cupola. I got someone to help me carry the slab to my pickup and hauled it back to my mother's house and installed it in her dining room. The drawing I worked from was used as the cover of the booklet that went with the nature walk project. Then there were the full moon festivals that were held on the night of the full moon in good weather. These gatherings were held on a mountain top meadow on a piece of property my friend Brad Blanchard owned. Folks would start to gather at the meadow at dusk. The road up to it was unpassable after a while and a short walk through the woods was necessary to get there. People would straggle in, in small groups, bringing food and drinks. A bonfire was built in the center of the meadow. I brought thumb harps and drums. Brad brought thumb harps and drums. We brought flutes. Folks brought horns. Marcellus brought conga drums and his big dog. As the sun went down the drums would start. The fire was lit. People would start cooking on it. Firewood was gathered in the afternoon by those of us who came early. These were really magic happenings. Sometimes hundreds came, sometimes only a few dozen or less but each one was a celebration of freedom, nature, humanity, and the cosmos. I might add that marijuana, LSD, peyote, and magic mushrooms all at one time or another were used in these celebrations and not once was there ever any trouble or any violent behavior of any kind. There was always a rich soup, sometimes barbecued deer or goat or chicken, water, beer and wine, but no hard liquor or hard drugs. I had a favorite pair of Levis that fit just right but were beginning to develop holes. I started sewing patches on them but in time it got to be too much trouble. Sharon couldn't patch them because of her visual problem but I couldn't bring myself to discard them. Pat's wife Nancy volunteered to keep them going for me and under her hand they gradually became a work of art. I wore these pants at all the Thursday night perfect music sessions and all the events my perfect music band played. I wore them at all the events I've described above, all the full moon festivals; they were my perfect music performance uniform.