Santa Cruz Hippies and Pynchon

[Timothy C. May]

Michael McCormick writes, responding to another's observation:

> But having made that disclaimer, I totally agree with what you said.  I was 
> disturbed by things like naming a band the Vomitones, which no punk band 
> would ever, ever call itself.  It sounds more like what someone immersed in 
> 50s culture would *imagine* punk bands call themselves.  In general, I think 
> it's fair criticism of _Vineland_ to say that TP reveals a tin ear for the 
> modern 80s culture he is supposed to be lampooning.

I've found that nearly all fictional rock band names sound stupid.
"The Paranoids" in "Lot 49" sounded just as stupid. Ditto for the rock
singer motif in Steven King's "The Stand," seen recently on t.v., with
a phony-sounding song entitled "Baby, Do You Love Your Man?"

Why is this so? I contend that many rock groups have basically stupid
names, that this has always been so, but that we _get used_ to the
sounds of things like "The Beatles" (Beat?), "The Troggs," and "Billy
Vera and the Beaters." (This last one is indeed real, albeit hardly
popular and hardly punkish, but real. And any author who included a
fictional "Billy Vera and the Beaters" might be called
"Pynchonesque.")

Modern names are just as meaningless: Stone Temple Pilots, Hole, etc.

I won't argue that Pynchon has a flawless ear--things about all his
novels can be grating in places--but I can easily imagine an alternate
universe in which Curt Cobain (or was it Kurt Kobain?) fronted a
groups called the Vomitones. People would cluck about the name, but
accept it as a given....and then see a name like "Stone Temple Pilots"
as hopelessly implausible.

The ersatz-60s flavor of "Vineland" may be unrealistic to some. But
here in the Santa Cruz area, where I live and where Pynchon lived when
he wrote "Vineland," this kind of culture is still prevalent. A visit
ot Pacific Avenue, especially on the Wednesday afternoon farmer's
market will show young girls in granny glasses, long skirts, ankle
bracelets, etc. The young guys are in tie-dyed shirts, multi-colored
knit hats covering their Rastafarian brownish hair (matted
together...anybody know how this happens or what it means?). Old VW
buses covered with Grateful Dead stickers, organic produce,
dogs....just like my recollections of the late 60s and early 70s. As
if the yuppies never appeared.

I gather that a large number of these folks live up in the hills above
Santa Cruz, in places like Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek, and
Bonny Doon. Communes in the redwoods.

Other regions are much the same: Topanga Canyon, near L.A., the
Arcata-Eureka area (an obvious setting for "Vineland"), Berkeley
(Telegraph Avenue), and Marin County.

Knowing now that P. wrote "Vineland" while he lived here, I can now
recognize many of the settings, including the restaurant where Zoyd
says "Checks in the mayo."

And I see older hippie types with their teenaged children who have
gone punk, who have pierced navels, the whole bit. Seems to me Pynchon
was seeing some of the same folks.

And don't forget that he always goes a bit "over the top" in his view
of things...that's why we read him. What's so surprising to me is that
"Vineland" is not too much of an exaggeration of what I see here in
Santa Cruz.

I'm glad this threat came up. We need some real discussion here. 

Meanwhile, I hear the Paranoids have a new CD out, so....

--Tim May

(P.S. No, I never met Pynchon, so far as I know. Maybe he belonged to
the same health club I belong to. Maybe he browsed at Bookshop Santa
Cruz or the Capitola Bookcafe, and we all just missed him. I do know
that his friend Joan Baez comes here often, as her son is a local
musician, and she lives over in Woodside...the model, I think, for the
big outdoor party scene in "Vineland," where characters from "Lot 49"
made an appearance.)


--Tim May


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