Symphony for the Devil

Grace Slick

“Grace didn’t mail it in. Depending on your tastes, Playboy had sexier women, the Met better singers, London crazier rock stars, Greek mythology deadlier goddesses. Grace? Grace had an opinion. A vagina. And a microphone. She feared none of the three, used each when and how she pleased, and solicited no one’s blessing. Her existence was gender anarchy—social treason on the scale of the 1950’s Red Scare—a well-educated, white-girl ICBM inbound for Levittown. When I was seventeen in Chicago, my Grace Slick was Joan of Arc. At twenty- seven, in a Central American jungle, she was Volunteers on Wooden Ships. And yesterday, as I grin at her photographs, she was what I’d want a daughter to be if I could buy a guarantee the kid would live through it.”

—Charlie Newton

Al Davis

“Oakland’s outlaw. A social-engineering pirate masquerading as a professional sports billionaire. Al led with the haircut, a taunt to anyone who didn’t rob gas stations or sing backup for a 50’s tribute band. ‘Just Win Baby’ isn’t a mantra, it’s a bomb and Al’s world was a free-fire zone; his social assault on the NFL made possible because the ‘son of a bitch bastard wins.’ Worse, he wins with misfits—castoffs, Black coaches, Hispanic coaches, and women in the front office. He wins with Brooklyn diction, the worst sideline fashion wearable, and boardroom/courtroom confrontations where he routinely bet it all. Wall Street saw gold in the public adulation of Al’s perceived moral compass and quickly adopted ‘Just Win Baby’ as a constitutional right. The SEC regulators were cut from the team—enter 30 to 1 leverage and ‘too big to fail.’ By the time Nixon’s Silent Majority realized there was a heretic in their parade, the Super Bowl party was over, New York City was one signature from bankruptcy, and Bob Hope has the Village People on deck of the USS Intrepid singing their bunk-love anthem: ‘In the Navy.”

—Charlie Newton

Al Davis

“Oakland’s outlaw. A social-engineering pirate masquerading as a professional sports billionaire. Al led with the haircut, a taunt to anyone who didn’t rob gas stations or sing backup for a 50’s tribute band. ‘Just Win Baby’ isn’t a mantra, it’s a bomb and Al’s world was a free-fire zone; his social assault on the NFL made possible because the ‘son of a bitch bastard wins.’ Worse, he wins with misfits—castoffs, Black coaches, Hispanic coaches, and women in the front office. He wins with Brooklyn diction, the worst sideline fashion wearable, and boardroom/courtroom confrontations where he routinely bet it all. Wall Street saw gold in the public adulation of Al’s perceived moral compass and quickly adopted ‘Just Win Baby’ as a constitutional right. The SEC regulators were cut from the team—enter 30 to 1 leverage and ‘too big to fail.’ By the time Nixon’s Silent Majority realized there was a heretic in their parade, the Super Bowl party was over, New York City was one signature from bankruptcy, and Bob Hope has the Village People on deck of the USS Intrepid singing their bunk-love anthem: ‘In the Navy.”

— Charlie Newton

William Burroughs

“Unemployable Harvard grad, trust-fund drug dealer and addict, convicted of homicide in absentia, and ‘one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century.’ Well-traveled and jailed, William of Kansas didn’t do much other than midwife the Beat Generation that birthed Bob Dylan and the Beatles; marry Scientology and homosexuality to create the first real bride of Frankenstein, and share the ultimate acclaim: the cover of Sgt. Pepper. William’s literary adventures and their cult acceptance drove the critics and literati gatekeepers mad to the point of blindness. Had he been erasable they would have denied his birth. But William wasn’t erasable, and for those Lost Boys and Girls who didn’t fit the molds, William’s life recast ‘outside the lines’ as the insider trip. He embraced ‘punk’ before and during its rise, indicted the arts for their elitism; and in a final act of avant-garde insolence and impossibility, didn’t die of AIDS or overdose.”

—Charlie Newton

Timothy Leary

“Nixon’s epoch was the Inquisition. Be a heretic—preach an alternative future, have the balls to live it out loud—and the Holy Office promises your head on a plate. Any infraction equaled Federal prison and Tim Leary was sentenced to twenty-nine total. Heroes need villains and the yin to Tim’s yang was a monster’s ball—Nixon, Hoover, Agnew, Falwell—so bountiful the cast that when G. Gordon Liddy began routinely kicking in Leary’s door Liddy had yet to rise higher than Assistant DA in Poughkeepsie. No less than the President of the United States named Leary ‘the most dangerous man in America.’ Leary as Pied Piper became the frontline battle, but it was Leary’s ideas that were the Inquisition’s primal fear. Listen to the lyrics of ‘My Way’ and imagine Tim on that stage alone under the pin spot, no mafia or Rat Pack to back him. There should be a curriculum at Leary’s alma maters in ‘courage of your convictions.’ Every road with a blind curve or no speed limit should be named after him. And when we celebrate the founding fathers of the modern nation it’s time to include Tim with MLK because without Timothy Leary, we’d all be hiding in our basements or living in Canada.”

—Charlie Newton

Timothy Leary

“Nixon’s epoch was the Inquisition. Be a heretic—preach an alternative future, have the balls to live it out loud—and the Holy Office promises your head on a plate. Any infraction equaled Federal prison and Tim Leary was sentenced to twenty-nine total. Heroes need villains and the yin to Tim’s yang was a monster’s ball—Nixon, Hoover, Agnew, Falwell—so bountiful the cast that when G. Gordon Liddy began routinely kicking in Leary’s door Liddy had yet to rise higher than Assistant DA in Poughkeepsie. No less than the President of the United States named Leary ‘the most dangerous man in America.’ Leary as Pied Piper became the frontline battle, but it was Leary’s ideas that were the Inquisition’s primal fear. Listen to the lyrics of ‘My Way’ and imagine Tim on that stage alone under the pin spot, no mafia or Rat Pack to back him. There should be a curriculum at Leary’s alma maters in ‘courage of your convictions.’ Every road with a blind curve or no speed limit should be named after him. And when we celebrate the founding fathers of the modern nation it’s time to include Tim with MLK because without Timothy Leary, we’d all be hiding in our basements or living in Canada.”

— Charlie Newton

Tennessee Williams

“Imagine gay fifty years ago before gay meant rock stars, politicians, disposable-income demographics, and NBA centers. Then admit your ‘abomination,’ embrace it, stand back, and see if the witch hunters can kill you. Tennessee Williams was bravery on the scale of suicidal. Snow White’s magic mirror in hand, Tennessee reflected the society he knew, not the society our captains and kings pretended for us. From Menagerie onward, his mirror reflected our dysfunction as time-honored tradition: Incest, rape, envy, drugs, treason, alcohol, hubris, greed—the seven deadly sins with stage lights and an intermission. Tennessee taunted his demons, among them, drugs, alcohol, and self-doubt, and they happily destroyed him. But they couldn’t change a word he wrote. When I read he was from Clarksdale, I understood the answer. In 1920 Tennessee was eight, living in a preacher’s parsonage, ten years before the local black kids—Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, and John Lee Hooker sold their souls at the crossroads—Tennessee had been there, done that; a heretic superhero from that day forward who tightroped hell for his sins and ours.”

—Charlie Newton

R. Crumb

“’Racist, misogynist, sexual deviant.’ Really? The Robert of fact is a soft- spoken, geek nobody who failed to read the Modern Liberal’s Guide to Life. He draws comic books, okay? With a pencil, all alone, one book at a time, in Cleveland. Robert’s trip to the cross begins with visions of a move to Haight-Ashbury: His greeting-card job is toast; his Cleveland state of mind won’t translate well beyond the Cuyahoga, and LSD may taste good but it’s not the answer to nobody cares. Fate intervenes. Sort of. Robert and his Zap Comix are discovered outside the Condor Club and conscripted as Laureates of the Fifth Estate. The ‘legitimate’ media vomits disapproval at Robert’s iconography and demands his crucifixion as a mandatory Fourth Estate merit badge. The clergy, fledgling feminists, and reigning minority demigods provide the nails. Really? The geek with the pencil is a Fifth Column, lone gunman? Yeah, really. Robert has committed the vassal’s ultimate sin—giving his fellow unwashed a microphone. Unrepentant, Robert continues to pen his ‘white male, medieval Intellectualism,’ a vaccine for the illuminati’s utopian, weaponized virus ‘Politically Correct.’ But the virus is strong; its sponsors stronger, and for the next five decades the combination all but destroys civilization.”

—Charlie Newton

R. Crumb

“’Racist, misogynist, sexual deviant.’ Really? The Robert of fact is a soft- spoken, geek nobody who failed to read the Modern Liberal’s Guide to Life. He draws comic books, okay? With a pencil, all alone, one book at a time, in Cleveland. Robert’s trip to the cross begins with visions of a move to Haight-Ashbury: His greeting-card job is toast; his Cleveland state of mind won’t translate well beyond the Cuyahoga, and LSD may taste good but it’s not the answer to nobody cares. Fate intervenes. Sort of. Robert and his Zap Comix are discovered outside the Condor Club and conscripted as Laureates of the Fifth Estate. The ‘legitimate’ media vomits disapproval at Robert’s iconography and demands his crucifixion as a mandatory Fourth Estate merit badge. The clergy, fledgling feminists, and reigning minority demigods provide the nails. Really? The geek with the pencil is a Fifth Column, lone gunman? Yeah, really. Robert has committed the vassal’s ultimate sin—giving his fellow unwashed a microphone. Unrepentant, Robert continues to pen his ‘white male, medieval Intellectualism,’ a vaccine for the illuminati’s utopian, weaponized virus ‘Politically Correct.’ But the virus is strong; its sponsors stronger, and for the next five decades the combination all but destroys civilization.”

— Charlie Newton

Bill Graham

“Berlin wraith, silenced by a tribal scream the world declined to hear, Bill survives what six million don’t. America and irony are Bill’s first friends: Mime grants him a voice someone can hear…then the lease on the Fillmore in San Francisco. Overnight, his stage becomes the broadcast tower for a new tribe. Golden Gate Park is Mecca. His wall of Marshall amplifiers conquers the Oakland Coliseum, then Winterland, then the Fillmore East in NYC. Everyone plays Bill’s stages, tent-shouting lyrics that confront the war, the peace, and the gods of the old way. Five Rolling Stones tours carry the grail coast to coast. Holy shit, Money is made. CEOs open wide to swallow unaware Bill’s money is dosed with ideas, unaware fate has forged the counterculture’s silver bullet. America’s youth swallows, too, then skids off the rails, worshiping gods of the new way and their Stratocaster gospels. The puritans’ spell is broken. Bill-the- hero dies classic rock n’ roll/Greek tragedy, and in the final irony, his voice—our voice—is bought by the wicked queen of the old way and now sells us her soap and cereal.”

—Charlie Newton

Miles Davis

“Miles knew what he was about. Most of us did not; we thought he was Bigger Thomas. To our surprise, Miles chose a trumpet instead of Bigger’s furnace, headlined Montreux instead of San Quentin, and changed music four or five times forever. If you held power or position you aspired to keep, Miles Davis was the enemy – the revolution’s featured artist, and his vision of your reign was a short one: ‘Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.’ His music’s melodic, spacious, cool belied his politics and oh, baby, he was pissed: ‘If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man.’ Yeah, Miles was angry, but surly pimp-daddy or not, he was the New Way’s herald, a knight in shining black armor who intended to sow and blow Armageddon until the Old Way folded or killed him: ‘The thing to judge in any man is, does the man have ideas?’ Miles had ideas, scary, bold, I-don’t-need-your-fucking-permission ideas. Compare his ideas to today’s empty-holster pontificators and your knees buckle.”

—Charlie Newton

Miles Davis

“Miles knew what he was about. Most of us did not; we thought he was Bigger Thomas. To our surprise, Miles chose a trumpet instead of Bigger’s furnace, headlined Montreux instead of San Quentin, and changed music four or five times forever. If you held power or position you aspired to keep, Miles Davis was the enemy – the revolution’s featured artist, and his vision of your reign was a short one: ‘Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.’ His music’s melodic, spacious, cool belied his politics and oh, baby, he was pissed: ‘If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man.’ Yeah, Miles was angry, but surly pimp-daddy or not, he was the New Way’s herald, a knight in shining black armor who intended to sow and blow Armageddon until the Old Way folded or killed him: ‘The thing to judge in any man is, does the man have ideas?’ Miles had ideas, scary, bold, I-don’t-need-your-fucking-permission ideas. Compare his ideas to today’s empty-holster pontificators and your knees buckle.”

— Charlie Newton

Steve Jobs

“Elvis was a lock as the next deity… Until the iPhone drops. Overnight, a Hajj to Graceland is a waste of zealotry. Moses has risen; he is iSteve— his desert, the globe and the billions of voices never heard. iSteve does no Sinai wander; his forty year Exodus is rifle-direct, a warp-speed connect-the-dots, the voices, the everywhere. We, the unheard billions, offer up our palms and eyes, and rejoice with our prophet. Alas, at the east bank of the Promised Land iMoses dies like he’s supposed to. We cross the river bathed in his charisma, mesmerized with the possibilities of the impossible. Amazing, borderless discourse ensues. We revel in our deliverance, buying apps for the finally-found, cyber-life El Dorado. Unfortunately, iMoses, like all prophets, is a Janus Door with two faces. The other face of his Promised Land is Orwell’s ‘1984.’ While we rejoice and revel, Big Brother builds cameras, microphones, and data farms. We don’t see Thunderdome being constructed by our own hands until we’re knee deep in Bartertown’s pig shit; willing partners with the new prophets in mindless consumption, greed, and media-hyped fear culture. We could call the opposition but there isn’t any. There are rumors, though, in the geek underground, mythology that says iSteve embedded a failsafe kill switch—Big Brother Kool-Aid called ‘Mad Max.’ Moses didn’t grin much; iSteve grinned a lot. As our date with Thunderdome approaches, we-the- unmesmerized might wanna hope ‘Mad Max’ is why.”

—Charlie Newton