--Paramanhansa Yogananda
The Ghost Bar sits atop the roof of the brand-new Palms hotel in Las Vegas, 55 floors above sin city's gold paved streets. Tonight is a special night, a pre-opening celebration of a billion dollar dream of steel, concrete, glass and crass. The room is wallpapered with exquisite ladies, a compost of goddesses, teasing their slick-rapping wanna be suitors with skin tight shakes and halter top wiggles. From this human heliport, one can scan the sparkling, sprawling magnificence of modern Babylon. I stand against the railing and inhale the crisp night air, basking in the illusion of elevation. It’s November 2001, two months since the Tower’s fell in New York, and the global economy was shaken like an 8.0 quake. Two months since the Earth was knocked off its axis and Las Vegas is bouncing back, baby, celebrating it’s latest, greatest skyscraper.
An hour later, I’m inside The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, watching Jane’s Addiction. Lead singer, Perry Farrell, the musical metaphor of Sufi poet Rumi's whirling dervish, hops and spins on invisible Gepetto strings, spitting wanton joy and spirit in an effortless display of choreographed abandon. "You're great!" he affirms to the children, lost and found, which hang on his twisted lyrical scripture while gyrating to tribal rhythms that lifted his addictive quartet out of the Hollyweird underground fifteen years ago. Guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist, Martine (who replaced original four-stringer Eric Avery) have reunited tonight in this time city of sin where nothing's shocking, especially my presence. Behold the pilgrim, once again away from home, rockin’ the mile, following the sirens, searching for clues.
The clock strikes one am as I stumble down another corridor of temptation; this time the signpost reads, Velvet Lounge. Here I was in Venice, again, but not the magnificent, ancient canalled, floating burg I strolled through just four months ago on another journey. This was faux Italy, the Vegas myth, the impossible dream. I sit in the dark and observe the toxic temptress as she laughs and dances while the drooling knight coughs up eleven bucks for each shot of liquid courage. Heaven on Earth, you say? It’s a lovely lie. Strip away the glitter and scalpel to the truth and you will discover that it is here, in this blinding Mecca of excess, that the darkness burns brighter than anywhere else. I take my leave, having shaken hands with the Devil but stopping short of French kissing his wanting lips.
I arose the next morning, got in my car and followed the signs. One of them said, Red Rock Canyon, so that’s where I went. It lays up against the western mountain range, a mere angel's breath from the Devil's playpen. Simply travel up Charleston Blvd. until suburbia disappears and you're there. The ghosts here belong not to fallen thrill seekers but sober giants of an age far, far removed. In this primordial bowl sculpted by divinity, the whistle of the wind is the only audible sound. Dinosaurs once walked the ground on which I stand. Now, the only monsters are the utopian towers that dot the landscape twenty miles away. Close your eyes and you can detect the faint rumble of ancient thunder, 120 million years before the first clang of a slot machine. Modern man will not build here on the bones of elders past. I breathe a sigh of both appreciation and realization for I knew that I would someday, find this place again.
But instead of finding my way back to Highway 15, the road that takes one home if one lives in L.A., I am drawn to another paved pathway bearing the signpost this time, Death Valley. In two hours, I am in another cathedral of rock, being star struck by grand, flowing organic sculptures of myriad color, shape and texture, unending testimonials to the Architect. Antediluvian neon. The desert is a harsh mistress, so there is little activity here. Life takes place amongst the cracks. And lest not we forget, man boldly ventured to this deathly place a century and a half ago, motivated by the same promise that built Las Vegas: Gold. The 49ers. Fools or visionaries, pick a point of view. They're long gone now, their primitive entrepreneurial spirits but dust in the desert wind.
It's called Dante's View, but the man who envisioned Inferno never glimpsed this vista, for if he had, he would have written of Heaven, as this is as close to it I have ever felt. Six thousand feet above the valley floor, black crows soar at eye level as you sidle up to edge of eternity. On a crystalline day like today, you can see the tip of Mt. Whitney in the far distance, the highest peak in America, while in the next breath, your gaze is directed downward to Badwater, at the foot of this mountain, the lowest point in the country. The precipice of salvation, ascension and descent, the harmony of balance, the peak, the valley, the truth of all things past, present and future...right here, beneath my feet.
It's not enough to merely view the bottom from a crow's nest. You have to go there, trek the valley and all it's shadowy enclaves, for it is the invaluable reference by which our life's purpose is gauged. Whether observing the greed born metropolitan nightmare from a platform of ghosts or the spirit -born construct of mother Earth's most beautiful dreamscape from a peak of soulful prosperity, all acts beget the play. Fears must be faced and demons wrestled in both worlds; down the mountain I drive.
Badwater is 280 feet below sea level, the definitive geological bottom of this great and powerful nation. The barren, white salt floor stretches from this point to the north and south for a hundred miles. The silence here deafens. I walk for a while toward the center of the valley -- the valley of death -- and I stop. I sit down on the hard but smooth basement of time and space and close my eyes. The bottom. I know it well. “Hello darkness, my old friend,” sang Paul Simon. Yes, I can feel your pain, your confusion, your desperation, desolation and depression. I know you from the pit of my gut that aches every time I lose faith. Every lie, every hurt, every doubt, every fear... so this is where you hang out, huh? Must have had quite a party on September 11th. I like what you've done to the place. Very primitive. But you won't mind if I don't stay long?
Numbed by the highway and its hypnotic, endless miles, I arrive home midmorning the next day, having stopped for six hours at a fifty-buck motel in a zero-horse town on route 127. I have climbed the mountains; both steel and rock, and danced in the valley of shadows and Addiction. I am fully conscious of the glory both possess. I am weary but empowered. As I pull into my LA driveway, I glance down at the odometer. Since departing five days ago, I've traveled 988 miles. What does the Tao say? "The thousand mile journey begins beneath your feet?" That rocks.
* * *
It was one of those days. Funky with a capital F. Six months in the desert, divorce nearing legal finality, the last blood spilling in numerous Ims to the kindred souls that have watched and waited for the eminent rise from the proverbial ashes. It’s April 2004, and the pilgrim that abandoned his homeland – the city of the Angels – to dwell in Satan’s sanctuary in search of salvation, is melting down.
It’s hour prior to dusk. The sun has already dipped below the western rim of Red Rock Canyon, which since November of 2003 has rested ten minutes outside the kitchen window of my $900, a month apartment in Summerlin, Nevada. The emotional cancer of separation had taken its toll. To survive, I tapped into the lessons learned from Kundalini yoga and the umpteen texts of spirit read and digested to help me stay on path as my insides decayed like the core of a rotting fig, the fruit that kept Moses alive when he was exiled to the land of snakes and scorpions. Moses got to Sinai, dropped his sandals on holy ground and heard the word. The bush that burned away my lies, wrestled my demons to the sand and put the words at my fingertips, rests in Red Rock Canyon. It’s called Juniper Tree.
It sits at the highest point, 4700 feet above sea level, above Be level. To be UP is where I needed to be on this spring day. Synchronicity placed the YES CD, Ascension, in the car deck. First song on disc two, "Mind Drive," mapped my way both in rapturous melody and perfect lyric. I parked my car and took my backpack from off the seat and strolled past the one and only Juniper in the canyon (how profound its solitude, how eternal and beautiful its existence). Down the hill two hundred yards into the canyon I walked until I came to a spot where my feet stopped and said, 'this is good.' And so I sat, crossed my legs and scanned Creation.
I've been reading Alan Watt's The BOOK, again, blinding synchronicity in word and tone. Writ in 1966, it’s a treatise on self realization, post beat generation, hippie intellect, freak philosophy, right in my wheel house. "On the taboo against knowing who you are" is its subtitle. Like Henry Miller has done for me so many times, the words of a dead seer pierced me, splayed me wide, gave me solace that this journey I am on has been made by millions before me. The juniper is alone but it is NOT lonely. Here in Red Rock, I am never alone and I began to feel the vital vibration of connection. I put the book down and closed my eyes. Meditation. Salvation. Rejuvenation.
Slivers of light were all that lit the canyon when I opened my eyes. You cannot describe what you see when you disappear into your own self because it is NOTHING. And that's where it’s. Everything came from NOTHING. Do the math. Do the scripture. Do it all. Do everything. Do nothing. To package into wordy description that moment when you open your eyes and the corporeal world returns, somehow better, healed, new and improved, yet old and precious, has been the challenge of poets since time immemorial.
Watts quotes the Gospel according to Thomas, the exact passage that Tolle quotes in disc five of the Power of Now, which I had listened to earlier in the day, before my online meltdown sessions commenced. "When you make the two, one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below...then shall you enter the Kingdom. I am the light that is above. I am the all. The all came forth from me and the all attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood and I am there; lift up the stone and you will find me there." That is divinity in a nutshell. It's not religious. It has no my way or the high way rhetoric. Its Buddhist and Hindu and Kabbalah and yogic, new age, pick a number between one and infinity you'll come up the same. One word. I picked up one of the thousand rocks that provided my audience and saw the truth. What did Paul Simon say? “ I am a rock. I am an island.”
I got back in my car and took the long way through highway 160 past Blue Diamond and hit the strip around 8 pm. The Mandalay Bay marquis was right in front of me on the left. YES, In Concert. Yessongs was the live, triple LP package that everyone with a prog rock heart owned back in the 70s. And I was most definitely one of those misfits. Yes in concert was a journey to the outer reaches of free flowing, ensemble rock divinity. They were leaders of the movement, true musicians, masters of their craft that wove tales of topographic wonder.
I wasn't sure whether I had tickets to the show or not. I’d sent an email days ago to the band’s publicist, Michael Jensen, to respectfully request entrance but I never heard back. That didn’t matter. If I were meant to see Yes again on this day, I would see Yes. So let it be written. "No tickets, no list, sorry,” said the girl at the box office. She was friendly. I didn’t argue. The state of surrender implies life proceeds as it does without attachment; let go, let God. “Okay,” I replied. “Thanks for checking.” I don’t even get disappointment anymore because I don’t need or want anything anymore. Longing has given way to being. I took my leave, exiting into the massive hallway that leads back into the Casino passed the high-end eateries and through the throng of tourists who were in the building to party, gamble, and get high on the illusion. “Yes” was a response to ‘another drink?’ or ‘would you like to double down?’
Then it happened, as it so often does. An angel, whom I did not recognize, crossed my path as I was leaving. "Lonn!” he said. “Lonn Friend! Dude, I'm Todd from Ludwig Drums. I met you at NAMM (the annual National Association for Music Merchants trade show in Anaheim) and REO Speedwagon a couple months ago." First I drew a blank, then, recognition. I was still in the afterglow of Red Rock, not quite attuned to things and people passing before my eyes in real time. “Oh yeah!” I replied, my eyesight restoring. “Todd. How’s it going, man?” Two minutes later, having articulated my plight, the nice guy baring a laminate – who was here taking care of the percussive needs of Yes sonic skin basher Alan White – escorts me into the arena and drops me off at the sound board where I take my seat for the day’s second visit to the astral plane.
The crowd was modest but lively, connected. I glance at the five men I once knew so well. Steve Howe was gray, wise looking, almost professorial; he caressed his axe in the exact post as he did three decades ago. And he played with the same stellar speed and virtuosity. The opening strains of “Yours is No Disgrace” cracked my being. I loved to air guitar this one with my brother back in our tiny bedroom, the one we shared on Oxnard Street in Van Nuys where the rent was $175 a month but still a strain on my mom's check book.
"Caesar’s Palace, morning glory, silly human, silly human race." Jon Anderson’s lyrics were Sin City synchronicity. I was where I was supposed to be. Connected to the rock, the old rock, the primordial rock, the eternal rock.
When they played "And You and I" and Rick Wakeman vaulted into the booming meletron bridge, a hymn like vibrational wave covered the prog rock faithful. Jon Anderson introduced the track as one the band's most important because it was for US, the fans. The 200 pound woman in front of me kissed her husband on the lips and rose her lighter skyward. I was alone. But not lonely.
When they broke into side one of their iconoclastic, conceptual, tripped out 1974 classic, Tales from Topographic Oceans, that's when time and space dissolved into memory. I was back home in the San Fernando Valley. 17 years old; a four eyed, rock n’ roll retard sitting at home with his import vinyl, spinning aural paintings of mystery and fairy tale imagination. Jon Anderson was Gandalf. The minstrels, his hobbit band, were masters of their weapons. I listened to Tales every day for I don't know how long. Four sides. Four songs. One visionary opus.
I entered U.C.L.A. the year that Yes released Topographic Oceans as a Geology major. Visiting my father and his new wife in Virginia prior to beginning studies at the University, I remember telling my dad over dinner, “I’m going to study Geology, pop.” He tilted his head and replied, “Geology? What that’s, the study of rocks? How are you going to make a living at that?” I eventually changed my major and received my B.A. degree in Sociology – a far less scientific and more, social, discipline. Isn’t it funny that I eventually became a rock journalist and did, in fact, make a living studying rock. And isn’t it funnier that in the spring of 2004, I have finally identified the metaphor. Red Rock, progressive rock, what’s the difference? They both…rock.
My last Yes live experience prior to tonight was the 1974 Tales tour. In the liner notes to the Tales double CD, Jon Anderson describes the creative process that birthed this revolutionary work. He sites Paramanhansa Yogananda’s ephemeral masterpiece, Autobiography of a Yogi, and Shastric scriptures as the LP’s Inspiration.
Yogananda founded the Self-Realization movement five decades ago. He was a spiritual counsel to presidents and heads of state across the globe. Back in Los Angeles, I would often visit the pastoral Lake Shrine on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades and meditate amongst the pristine surroundings, having long conversations with God, the ducks and my self. A portion of Gandhi’s ashes is housed at the Lake Shrine. Not until I saw Yes on this April night in 2004 and made the Topographic trip back in time to rediscover the recording did I make the connection. How could I?
My spiritual journey did not commence until the spring of 1998. That was the spring I read Autobiography of a Yogi and began my long mid life period of personal deconstruction. I am still, in many ways, that same, lonely, confused kid spinning vinyl in his room, finding a way out of my head in the music that I loved. There are times when peace and happiness can only be found when listening to a rock song that takes you someplace outside of yourself. To a land of topographic beauty where the within melds with the without and all things are one. If that’s the word that I was meant to spread in this incarnation, so let it be done. And done with enthusiasm. Yes!
End
