In 1971 Bless the Beasts & Children exploited a unique and overwhelming sad focus on how geeks, misfits and nerds were treated. Boys go to Box Canyon Summer Camp to relax, play games and bond. Not for a group of boys that get bullied.
Bill Mumy – Lawrence Teft III
Barry Robins – John Cotton
Miles Chapin – Sammy Shecker
Hazing is a wake-up call for these boys. This film is about how badly some of us raise our children. Teaching them the wrong way to treat innocence or uniqueness. I recommend anyone with a youngster about 12 or 13 to view this film with them.
I loved this film when I first viewed it because I was coming of age and waking up to the real world too. The motif of this film fits nicely into the seventies groove, hey it was the beginning of the hardcore seventies.
The love these boys focus on together is upon the wild Buffalo. They find out that these proud and innocent beasts, almost reaching extinction, are being gunned down by sport hunters as if in a penny arcade.
They start on a journey as youngsters and transform into young men by standing up for something besides their small personal problems.; against all odds they are going to try and save the Buffalo. Growing up is finding out that the good guys do not always win.
Bless The Beasts & Children is filled with humor, intense emotions, sadness, and love. The soundtrack is peaking a seventies musical score with the hit song Bless the Beasts & Children by The Carpenters.
We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
~Tyler Durden
“This is the Beat Generation” which appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 16, 1952 and attempted to define the very essence of the young people of the movement. He wrote that those of the Beat Generation harbored more than just weariness, but carried raw feelings of being used and endured a nakedness of mind and soul. Jack Kerouac countered in interviews by explaining that “beat” really meant “beatific” or “sacred,” and many interpreted his works as exercises in capturing the holiness of the downtrodden.”
Listening to the shock over the last few years, in general, of our young men, who kill with weapons of mass destruction? Now I see it is not a gun or assault weapon that we should worry about but any sort of destructive tool. I ask this question, are all of these random acts of violence random? It is beyond religion, race, or country. These young men have intelligence, college and lack accountability. I hold parents, institutions, and all of us accountable too. I see this as a global problem. My insight tells me that we are seeing a manifestation of repressed shadow at play, with roots that are deep in the unconscious of these young men: manifesting in our young men in times of disillusionment and abasement. How else can we understand this hate, malice and disregard for life, joy, and innocence?
I have spent a good deal of my life with rebellious men; ones that I watched in films, those in bands, artists, and writers. Rebellion is healthy in any culture. It asks questions and plays with a culture creatively and freely. Yet, what I see now goes much further and deeper and shows us the real face of a powerful diabolical shadow. It needs a name.
My son is a part of this generation of young men, he grew up with the Matrix, Harry Potter, and Lord of The Rings, not to forget to mention all of the anime cartoons and comic books. Somehow the foresight of these stories, myths and archetypes draws upon the individual young men and their ability to endure and conquer the evils of the world, but some of the characters, on an individual level, join this shadow and do untold harm to others and a culture. We need these stories now and I am glad they are here.
I am listening deeply, and this new generation of young men have an intense unconscious to deal with. Some pop under this pressure.
I am not talking about gangs, or any drug culture supported by addicts that are unaware and adrift in it. I see something deeper and beyond this… like cancer.
So, what can we do? Well, reflecting on what I am saying and considering what I am saying, is a good start. I am sure I am not the only one seeing this either. We need to stop projecting blame on the individual young man but start looking at his shadowy cancer instead. The unconscious shadow of these young men is perverted and out of balance.
This shadow is in all of us, yes, it is part of us all. It is part of who we are as human beings. We need to do something creatively unique and focus our conscience and our attention on this hidden issue. Maybe, read the books of their generation or at least talk to them about these stories. The world that incarnated with them is the world of computers, cell phones and endless games online or elsewhere.
This is not a solution but an insight into this problem at hand… it is time for all of us to listen to our young men. We may not agree with what they have to say, but it is time to acknowledge the big shadow they are carrying on their backs. It is a hidden collective unconscious that acts randomly on the individual.
This is due to a buildup of repressed negativity from many cultures from around the world. It is global. The world is getting faster and faster. Technology is moving faster and faster as well. It is time to slow down again and take the path of quality over quantity. We need to show them the value of life instead of only pushing them towards fame, fortune, or wealth.
This got me thinking about the continuity of an image. An image can fly around through many cultures and not really be understood, even though it sometimes carries great meaning, wisdom and insight.
As an older woman I find nothing in my current culture to affirm what I am going through, which is menopause. I look to the celebrities and they all practice yoga and get plastic surgery. Most of them all look the same. When I look at ancient or archaic cultures I see women statues of big bosoms and round behinds. Some are smiling like Sheela-na-gig while holding their vulva’s open for all to see. I get confused. I cannot talk to my mom because she is dead. My sister raced through menopause due to chemotherapy, so she does not really have to play the waiting game; something a woman goes through, wondering, what in the hell is going on? (I must say in retrospection that both my Mom and sister had their own suffering and waiting to attend to with what they went through..it is different . I don’t know if either of them wondered about menopause like I do now ?) All my grandmothers are pretty much dead or beyond reproach. I do not have a real tradition passed down to me. No old women sitting around the camp fire telling me their wisdom women stories. So I went looking.
My education is rich and I have studied many cultures. Mostly it is the great erect patriarchs, histories and mythologies, that are floating around in my brain. Occasionally a matriarch pushes a couple of men out-of-the-way like Cleopatra or Inanna the Sumerians Goddess; but this is rare. The Thirteen Grandmothers of the ancient Native American culture are very helpful, yet not really something that has overwhelmingly screamed to my ovaries.
I have found that it is a bird that has come to initiate me into my lost women mysteries. The owl has been with me all of my life, even when I was growing up on a wild hill in Woodland Hills. I remember hearing hooting of the owl at night. I recall seeing a white owl in my twenties in Whittier while taking a walk on Easter day. I remember the two owls perched on a tree at the medicine wheel gathering in Santa Rosa. The medicine man told me not to look at them.
“I would not look up at them very long, they are very powerful beings.”
Their eyes were as molten lava. Their image burned in my brain.
At home I have a plastic owl on the tallest metal racks in the kitchen. The kind of owl you see in gardens or on tall buildings to keep the others birds from pooping on someone’s property. The owl is looking outside. At night I can see it’s reflection on the widow looking inside at me.
I have been studying the Eleusinian mysteries for many years trying to understand them. Yes, this mythology is a good one. The archaeology is fab and it is as old and ancient as women. It isn’t telling its real mysteries to a patriarchal culture. I am only finding out now that the owl does have a story to tell by these mysteries.
I have learned that in part of the Eleusinian mysteries women would wear large coins on their heads. They would tie them on their heads and drink fermented drinks as part of the initiation. The image on some of these coins is the owl. I studied this ancient image and then I rendered this image on paper with my own hand.
This got me thinking about the continuity of an image. An image can fly around through many cultures and not really be understood, even though it sometimes carries great meaning, wisdom and insight.
Who first saw this owl? They saw it, drew it from their imagination, and then a coin was created by casting the metal into a mold. This is the process of seeing, imagining and creating.
Is it by chance that this image has flown from antiquity onto my wrists as tattoos?
Is there a place where the old women still meet around an ancient fire?
Is the continuity of an image as an owl, the ancient symbol of female initiation, my participation in this waiting game known as menopause? Is an ember of the fire sill warm and are the ancient women telling me now their stories …if I take the time to listen? Or am I only melting into goo on the floor, that will soon petrify and with time fly away into dust?
“In the vacuum of outer space particles tend to clump together. We clustered together as young punks and we created a scene that is still amounting to something? We were a forgotten stagnation of youths that yearned for change. We were unhappy with our world and ourselves.”
~ Excerpt from My Punkalullaby by Hudley Flipside
“You’re not the first you’re not the last, another day another crash.”
I am not going to do a critical documentary and linear history of Darby Crash. My time in the early punk scene is based on blurred colors and images as a Claude Monet painting. My feelings and emotions linger and still wake me up late at night.
I found him shy, troubled, and out of control. The beat of underground music brought us together. I was unaware of any agenda he had, or anyone had for that matter because the lines were fuzzy.
Darby was a baby when he died. My son is his age now. I often think about how young and inexperienced Darby was.
The below image is a shirt that was given to me by my longtime friend Edward Colver the punk rock photographer extraordinaire.
I love the shirt. When I investigate Darby’s face that Ed captured, I see a small degree of the man he was becoming.
It was not the young face that I knew. A face that I took for granted. I thought Darby, the early punk scene, and my youth would last forever but nothing does.
Edward Colver, Thanks for the t-shirt buddy !
My only regrets are.
I wish I would have given him a little more of my time,
I wish I would have given him more of my clothing when he asked,
I regret laughing when he was drunk, high, and rolling in glass,
I regret this the most.
What a kid,
What a character…
Happy Birthday Darby, RIP.
I am not the faithful fan as many seem to be of the Germs or Darby. There are many that knew him better than I did. I rolled in the same wave that moved that early Los Angeles punk scene. He was one of the unique originals, the few Los Angeles punks.
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