It’s Reggae Week again (August 2nd to 4th at County Line Ranch), which used to be like our national holiday around here, the annual celebration when hippies, growers, and all the rest of us back-to-the-landers poured in from the hills, reconnecting with our friends and neighbors for a day of sun and music with the big stars of reggae music.
The performers liked to come to Southern Humboldt, the weed capital of the world, as marijuana was their religion as well as ours, and lots of money flooded into community organizations and rural schools, running their annual fundraising food and drink booths, artisans selling their homemade creations, and profits for the Mateel Community Center (MCC) to fund their/our entertainment programs, other events, and to rebuild after the original building burned up in an arson fire in the 1980’s. (It was also an opportunity for local bands to play, sometimes at nine in the morning.)
In the early years we just packed a few joints and other goodies, drove down to the site near the county line, and randomly parked along both sides of Highway 101. We walked half a mile or so to the entrance booth, bought our tickets for ten bucks (this week three-day tickets are $299 in advance and $349 at the gate), and followed the throng of happy hippies walking into the dusty and exciting bowl at Frenches Camp, joining thousands of other revelers for a day of music, dancing, and working in the booths with other volunteers, including the hundreds necessary to put on the show. (Later, the casual and unorganized parking along the highway was prohibited, and shuttle buses were run to the site from Garberville, Redway, Benbow, and the campgrounds.)
After some years the event expanded to two days, then three, and it got so huge and popular that some of those working on the event for the Mateel split off and started a production company to run it for profit, with a fat cut for the Mateel.
Then came the Reggae Wars in 2006 and 2007 when Peoples Productions and the MCC battled in court for ownership of the event after heated contract negotiations ended in stalemate, and divided the community: Were you with Peoples or the Mateel? (There were rumors of outlaw selling of wristbands by insiders, and pocketing thousands, that kind of graft probably inevitable, as there was so much cash floating around.)
After many months of drama, everyone wanted to stop fighting and a settlement was reached: Peoples took over the event and started an alternate festival just down the river from the original site, calling it “Reggae Rising.” The Mateel kept the name “Reggae On The River” and received a cash payment, while the Southern Humboldt community, the vast majority supporting the Mateel, was shocked that a private company could take over our non-profit’s main fund-raising event.
There has never been a public reckoning about what really went down with that community conflict, it was such a bitter and devisive experience that few wanted to delve into it deeper. Eventually the polarizing memories faded, people moved on and mostly healed friendships and families, and a fragile peace returned. (Seventeen years later, this rundown of a moment in time, lacking many details, may still be upsetting to some, as it had been such an emotional issue.)
The Mateel eventually restarted the festival when Reggae Rising fizzled out, put it on at Benbow once or twice, farmed it out to “High Times,” and when that didn’t work cancelled it for several years, and now it’s back!
Is putting on Reggae crucial for the Mateel Community Center’s survival? Is Reggae this year risking the Mateel’s survival? Will it be a joyous and profitable event?
Over the years Reggae became more for out-of-towners than the community event it started out as, and was for its first thirty years, and still takes a lot of local volunteers to put it on. I hope it works out and is a smashing success, in this era when music festivals are struggling to be profitable, and even to keep existing.
(Backstage note: I first became aware of the glory of backstage when at one concert I went up to Jerry S, told him I wanted to give some weed to the bands and he put a special wrist band on me, then showed me into the hallowed area. Whoopie, was I finally an “insider?”)
Who Are These Guys?
Sketches of the Thank Jah Boys
PB, Owl, and Fred host the KMUD morning talk show Thank Jah It’s Friday, a takeoff on Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF) but I would have assumed they were a bunch of atheists or agnostics. Then again a few years ago Owl told me that if I ever wanted to get laid in this town again I should realize that woman like pseudo-spiritual guys.
Owl likes to tell the story how he first met PB when both were hitchhikers in the back of a van near Chelan, Washington where they had gone to pick apples one fall in the mid-seventies. They started talking and discovered they were practically next-door neighbors in Briceland and a long friendship ensued. (Decades later PB said the only reason he still does Thank Jah is to hang out with Owl, however when Owl disappeared to Hollywood a few years ago PB kept the show and brought Fred into the studio, a step up from his previous role calling in movie and video reviews.)
I first met Fred on the golf course back in ‘83. You find a lot of deeply troubled individuals (me, not Fred) on the Benbow fairways. Playing golf you can chase a little white ball around and forget all your problems for a couple hours. Fred, like Owl, has been a local film-maker (“Ganjasaurus Rex,” “Marijuana Man”) as well as actor in the Pure Schmint theatre productions.
Along with PB and others they put on some classic productions over the years such as “Nobody Nose,” a hilarious depiction of the cocaine use running rampant through the community in the early ‘80’s. (The program for “Nobody Nose” was a triangular “bindle” that you unfolded to read the cast members names, within which was some unidentified white powder.) And of course there was “Vibram Soul” with the unforgettable scene of Barry being tossed around in the Redway laundromat washing machine. Owl said the community liked these shows (“Its Not My Ego, Its the Coffee” and many more) because they were about us! How right he was.
Fred-In-The-Hills had just won the President’s Cup tournament at Benbow when I met him. He also ran for president on the Pot Party platform in 1996, wrote a book (Another Beautiful Day in Paradise ), painted a bunch of paintings, and continues to advocate for free pot and love to this day. If he plays the guitar, which I’m not aware of, and cuts a CD with his dulcet cigaret voice I would have to label him a Renaissance Man. I don’t know if he plays golf anymore but I know I never beat him. (This just in: Yes he plays guitar.)
Owl’s a New Yorker and loves the Yankees. I had a few conversations with him over the years at intermissions during the old dances at the Firemen’s Hall where we analyzed the theory that how we related at the dance, who we danced with, etc, reflected directly on who we were in our lives. Owl is one of those sharp funny guys who can joke and talk about anything. In sports Owl almost always got the better of me. He beat me every time at tennis and playing basketball he had these annoyingly consistent fade-away shots that I could never stop. His softball team almost always beat mine except for that big tournament game back in ‘83 when the Lost Coast Whalers knocked his Briceland Buzzards out of the playoffs on one very hot day in September. I think I beat him in golf a couple times. (PB also loved sports. Playing basketball he could sink those little 13-foot jumpers nearly every time and he was a scrappy singles hitter for his softball team The Red Eyes. They looked very cool out there on Sunday mornings all wearing their sunglasses. We all had fun but the Red Eyes were a step beyond.)
So Owl makes a few films locally and writes, directs, and acts in some plays, then heads to Los Angeles following the trail blazed by Rick Cooper, another Pure Schmint alumnus, to chase the Hollywood dream. While Rick was paying his dues being assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the director, Owl entered film school to hone his craft. Owl still called the radio show frequently and became “Hollywood Owl” for awhile. Yes he is back, making movies again, got his arm candy there at the Woodrose, and is still the bon vivant we know and love.
PB also did a stint in LA. For a couple years he was driving that fancy white car south for stand-up gigs and trying to make his name in the biz. Then he noticed there were all these wannabe comedians struggling so maybe someday they would make it out of LA and have a ranch in the country. PB realized he already had the mountain hideaway called The Too High Ranch.
So we’d be out at the Whale Gulch trade faire doing our groovy hippie thang (before the boring old hippie thing had kicked in) and these crazy guys, the Too Highs, along with their buddies from SFP (the Shit Fuck Piss Ranch) showed up and staged mud fights! (Doug Chatard must have gotten some footage although I hear his archives are in bad shape.) They were running around throwing mud balls at each other, very wild and creative. Then a few years later they got into fire walking. These very freaky hippies ran barefoot across beds of hot coals up there at The Too High Ranch. I went once and I couldn’t handle the scene, it just seemed too bizarre. I guess I was too square to appreciate it, a stick-in-the-mud in training behind the facade of long hair and beard.
Yes, the mud fight kid PB has come all the way to co-owning People Productions which produces Reggae on the River. PB, formerly a loyal Mateelian, first helped produce the event for the Mateel Community Center, and when it got too big to handle cooperatively he and Carol broke off to start PP to produce the festival. PB got his start promoting events at the Fireman’s Hall as well as benefits for worthy local political organizations like the anti-nuke Acorn Alliance.