Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose
Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free, now now
—Janis Joplin
So I am hip, dig, and it’s Moscow in 1970. Communism is alive and well. Kremlin’s down the street, and you’re in for a treat. The honorable ministers of information of the Black Panther Party and the Red Guard Party are holed up in a hotel room resting their feet and contemplating their next moves.
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
“Shit. Can’t sleep.”
“Everybody else sleeping.”
“Sleeping sweet like Lenin over there in Red Square.”
“Might as well be in Podunski, Nebraska.”
“Where are all the vodka bars?”
“This is why colored people got to be part of the revolution. Make sure we get our nightlife.”
“You were in Havana. How was that?”
“I had to go after them for their racism, but they do have their nightlife. Grant them that.”
Conversation goes on like that. Now, the world knows who wrote Soul On Ice, but the other young cat, he’s Chinese. I mean to say, he’s Asian American, representing. Red Guard’s not Chinese per se; it’s a new formation outta Chinatown in San Francisco. Brothers there got together, wanted to be Panthers, maybe Asian Panthers, but Bobby said no, you got to be your own thing. First it was Red Dragons, like they was kung fu Shaolin types, but that was knocked down in favor of the political: Red Guard Party. Got to be a party. That should catch some notice in the next few months.
Ministers are part of the U.S. People’s Anti-Imperialist Delegation traveling to the Red East: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, People’s Republic of China, and Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Moscow’s their introductory point, but it’s touchy. Sino-Soviet split, know what I mean? So first you ask for an introduction to Korea, then from there you ask for China, then you hop the border to Vietnam. That’s the plan. Delegation’s investigating the international situation; it’s not taking sides. Let’s agree that the principal enemy is U.S. imperialism. Indirect path to the man: Mao.
Meanwhile, sleepless revolutionaries got to pass the time. Drink that salty mineral water and swap stories.
“How come you didn’t get caught by the draft? You don’t look like the college type.”
Red Guard kicks off his boots. He says, “It’s all because of Janis Joplin.”
“No shit. Take a piece of my heart, baby.”
“I was saved by the Summer of Love.”
Everybody knows Janis, white baby girl birthed out the mouth of Big Mama Thornton, but truth be told, Red Guard is saved by his own papa. Chinese dad was a Vaudeville magic act. Did Barnum & Bailey, Las Vegas, and Forbidden City. Used to make a Chinese doll turn into a real China woman; turns out this is RG’s mama. Vaudeville was over, but the old man can’t do anything else. Makes ends meet by opening for Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. That’s how Chinese magic makes it happen. Old man opens for Big Brother and the Holding Company at the Avalon. Janis makes her debut, and RG is there.
“So you took up with Janis? Son of a bitch.”
“Not exactly.” Turns out RG is a stagehand for his papa and follows Joplin’s shows around. Avalon Ballroom, Winterland, Matrix, Fillmore Auditorium. He asks, “You heard about the Trips Festival at the Longshoremen’s?”
“Do I look like some hippy? Either I was doing time at Folsom or in Oakland putting out the Panther paper.”
“Missed your acid test.” RG shakes his head. Ken Kesey’s Pranksters wired Longshoremen’s with speakers, every kind of gadget, projections and strobes, crazy-assed climb-in sculptures—the total psychodelic experience. “You didn’t need it, but just in case, they were passing around a shopping bag of acid.”
“I’m hip. You were grateful dead.”
But there’s more: thanks to RG’s magic papa, Trips Festival brings in the Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps. Corps blasts their way in, parading through the crowd, followed by colorful Chinese New Year lion dancers.
“Get this.” RG leans over. “I was a lion dancer.”
“One stoned lion dancer.”
“You know it.” RG takes his half of the lion into the hippie revelry. Gets lost and found. Discards the giant headdress with that big furry do and those gigantic flapping teeth and goes home with a girl from the Haight. She’s one of those red diaper babies, hanging out with the Russian émigrés.
Panther nods. “I bet you took that red diaper off.”
“Rolled around in the good stuff for days.”
“We surrounded by red diapers and Russians. If only this Moscow were a bigger Haight.”
RG looks out the hotel window into the dark Moscow night, contemplates those immaculate streets below. These Russians don’t know what they’re missing. “That’s how I got my education.” It was a total deal: social, sexual, and political. Sex and Marx. Acid and Lenin. Ganja and Guns.
“College of the Haight. But that don’t get you no deferment.”
“Nope. Signed up with the guerillas.”
“You jiving.”
“For real: guerilla theater. Figured I had acting genes.”
Panther minister kicks off his shoes. It’s gonna be a long story.
“So I trained for the theater. Took it to the streets. I trained to be crazy.”
“You already crazy.”
Guerilla theater frolics down the Haight for festivities on the Panhandle. Does the prankster thing twenty-four hours a day with music, drums, and dancing in the street. It’s political theater at Union Square, from the Embarcadero down Market Street. It’s theater warfare in front of the Federal Building, in the city council meetings, making fools of the politicians on TV. It’s happening at the Fisherman’s Wharf, carrying on on the cable cars, making points with the tourists. If you come to the tripping city, you got to get your money’s worth. A visit with no run-ins with live, love-in be-in antiwar hippies can’t be a true visit. It’s all about spreading the flower power, ending the war, and getting high.
One day, RG gets off the bus around Masonic and sees this guy who is genuinely crazy. He follows the cat to make a study. Mimes the cat’s moves. Repetitive jerking and twisting. Then sits down on a bench for some chitchat, just to get a sense of the speech patterns.
He asks, “What’s your secret, man? What keeps you going this way?” Turns out it’s meth. Keeps you awake forever until you die with your eyes open.
RG puts an order in, kicks off the habit of sleep for a week. Plays Janis over and over like a mantra till her voice permeates his skin and he’s picking at it. One minute he’s sweet as honey; next he’s a monster. Eyes get dilated out to the rims. Practices his mimes and jerky moves to match the crazy cat. Makes his way into the nearest military recruitment office. Time to test out this guerilla’s answer to meth-od acting. Gonna scare the shit outta those military fuckers. You want My Lai? You want a gook infiltrator? I’m hip! Here I come! I’M YOUR MAN! I’M YOUR SOLDIER! I’M YOUR G.I. JOE! I’M YOUR GREEN BERET! I’M YOUR KILLER!
The Black Panther Party hereby offers to the National Liberation Front and Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism.
—Huey P. Newton
August 29, 1970