BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT

Thursday, September 6th – 7:30-9:30 pm
Terry Tarnoff tells of the hippie trail
and reads from his memoirs cum fantasias

Terry on the beach in Goa, India.

    The story of the “hippie trail” through the eyes of a traveler. North Beach writer Terry Tarnoff tells tales of the trail and of some of its more notorious characters. He’ll read passages from his paired memoirs, or are they novels, The Bone Man of Benares and The Reflectionist, and he’ll display artifacts and unspool videos evoking that legendary time.
     Terry’s eight years on the road led from London, Stockholm and Amsterdam to the coast of Kenya and the plains of Tanzania, to the deserts of India and the mountains of Nepal, to the war-torn villages of Laos and the islands of Indonesia. Along the way, he explored Hinduism and Buddhism, played with an African band in Mombasa, performed as a singer-guitarist in the Far East, and was a founding member of a rock band in Goa.
    In Kathmandu, Terry managed the infamous Spirit Catcher Bookstore for a year or so in the mid-1970s, and he’ll tell of poetry nights there beyond any you might imagine, bringing along some of shop’s very rare Bardo Matrix poetry books, printed on rice paper and written by Ira Cohen, Angus McLise (original drummer for the Velvet Underground), Harold Norse and others. He’ll show original posters as well, from the Spirit Catcher and the Eden Hashish Center.
     The ten pound block of hashish he would have liked to display is, sadly, no more.
     Much innocence accompanied the travelers, and while much was lost, much remained intact. Wherever they passed through, of course, the locals had their own thoughts about the travelers and their influence.

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPp9avA2hQ” /]

Dam maro dam, mit jaaye gham
Take another hit, all your worries disappear
Bolo subah shaam, hare krishna hare raam
From morning until night sing “Hare Krishna Hare Ram”
Duniyaa ne hum ko diyaa kyaa?
What has the world given us?
Duniyaa se hum ne liyaa kyaa?
What have we taken from the world?
Hum sab kii parwaa kare kyo?
Why should we worry about anyone?
Sab ne humaaraa kiyaa kyaa?
What has anyone does for us?Dam maaro dam mit jaaye gham…
Take another hit, all your worries disappear…Chaahe jiyenge, marenge
Whether we want to live or to die
Hum na kisii se darenge
We won’t be afraid of anyone
hum ko na roke zamaanaa
The world won’t be able to stop us
Jo chaahenge hum karenge
For we will do what we wantDam maro dam, mit jaaye gham
Take another hit, all your worries disappear
Bolo subah shaam hare krishna hare raam
From morning until night sing, “Hare Krishna Hare Ram”