Child of the Sixties

This is one from the heart, for certain expat readers of this blog -- and you know who you are:

Apart from the occasional "whatever became of" flurries, that seem to die out as quickly as they begin, it seems that few people remember Ossian Kennard Maclise -- the little Anglo-American boy recognized by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa as an incarnation of Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche (no, not this one, but another one).

Few people except his Mum, that is: she is the celebrated 'Sixties cultural figure Hetty Maclise, who has now taken to blogging, as have virtually all other surviving celebrated 'Sixties cultural figures (his Dad, Angus Maclise, of the Velvet Underground, passed away in 1979). For those of you who remember the time and the place -- and I am certain that you do -- Hetty was deeply responsible for content in San Francisco's Oracle, which was the first of a breed, founded by Allen Cohen and Michael Bowen. Angus was also a terrific fellow -- in New York, I once swapped him some silver Tibetan coins for something or other -- and I think he was the one who motivated the whole "lets go to Kathmandu" thing that was popular around then.

It is all flooding back.

Hatty and Angus were also great friends with Ira Cohen -- who I once traded for a mattress (was trying to furnish an apartment in the Village) by giving him a copy of Oracles and Demons of Tibet -- he refused to take money, saying he had to have the book. Ira, in turn, was also friends with Nazli Pema -- from her chalk drawing on the sidewalk in Paris days, before she married Tarthang Rinpoche.

We wound up getting kicked out of the Village apartment, only to move into Allen Ginsberg's Lower East Side apartment, which at the time was being kept by Rick Fields. Allen was in California, visiting lamas. Rick was supporting himself writing neo-Japanese pornography -- in English, mind you: rather elegant phrases like "the rain that falls inside" were his pride and joy -- and I had just landed an advance from Random House to write book on Buddhism in America that I never wrote. We used to have long discussions with Rick about this, to the point where he decided to pack his bags and leave in search of a lama -- and later, in 1981, wrote the book that I didn't.

This man predicted YouTube 40 years before it happened.

Meanwhile, Ira had introduced us to a memorable and visionary fellow named Stuart Leeder. The reason why I remember him is because (1) he was a remarkably kind human being, and (2) he had this crazy idea that someday, everybody would have a television camera -- except he called them "portable video cameras." He said that someday, people would send videos back and forth in place of letters. Did you ever hear of such a thing?

We had left Allen's apartment by then, and flush with the book advance had moved to East 92nd and Madison -- to a two bedroom garden apartment -- where the household consisted of Shirabin and me, my friend Aman Baher, a lapis-lazuli dealer from Kabul, and Stuart Leeder. Shirabin got me a Rolls-Royce for my birthday that year, so you know, there were also a number of hangers-on who wanted to ride in that car.

Shirabin was famous for more than 15 minutes

That is how it was in those days. There was a genuine spirit of camaraderie. I try to explain it to young people sometimes, but they just don't get it. Everybody knew everybody else, everybody wrote poetry or invented something, and sure enough, everybody got to be famous for fifteen minutes.

If you click this link, you will be transported to one of the Tibetan Buddhist world's most singularly remarkable historical records: "Namtar of the Wee Lama Boy." It is singular not only for recounting the story of Ossian, but for the unusual sidelight it throws on the whole Karmapa-made-it-rain-for-the-Hopis incident, and the whole Hopi Tibetan prophecy nexus.

Did I tell you -- this is about the 'Sixties?

Might want to download it and save it, before it disappears.

Love and Peace, and all the best to those who write in -- although I have this theory that if you remember enough about the 'Sixties to write about the 'Sixties, you weren't really participating in the 'Sixties -- but that is just one more thing the lamas did that was beneficial: they kept some of us away from the damn dope.

Recognize Freda Bedi's handwriting?

Afterthought: You know, it was all so easy in those days. If you wanted to see the Dalai Lama, you just went to see the Dalai Lama, and he would serve you tea. If you wanted to hang out with the Karmapa? No problem: more tea. If you wanted to meet Dudjom Rinpoche, the door was always open. You could make friends rather easily.

I think this is the main thing that has changed. You didn't have a lot of idiots jealously guarding the door, jockeying for position close to the throne, and basking in reflected glory.

 Cool hat, Dude.