At Home with Monterey Pop

We had some friends over last week to watch Monterey Pop, the documentary movie about the historic music festival, directed by D. A. Pennebaker. How nice to have vaccinated guests over after this awful hiatus! We vacuumed! We tidied! I made brownies with a dash of lemon (yes, and they were great) and a big pot of vegetable curry, Joe hung some 60's psychedelic posters, and the guests arrived. After some chit-chat around the table we all went down to our home theater room to watch the film.

Our home theater room is a rec room with a brown carpet stained with dog piddle, scrubbed occasionally, and heavily doused in various concoctions from bleach to lavender to straight-up CVS perfume. It smells like a third-rate dog brothel. The television is enormous, and hangs on a wall. We have two rows of couches and chairs facing it, not put there on purpose like a theater but there because when Joe brought in the big couch from the neighbor's curb, I wasn't there to oversee and he just pushed the old couch and chair back, kind of like rows of sharks' teeth. The windows are blocked by towels stapled to the ceiling. Soon I'll make curtains; it's been on my to do list for about five years.

I'd purchased the movie from YouTube, and being pretty tech-savvy thought I could easily log into my YouTube account on Joe's Big Television. Of course that was not the case, and after we finally figured out how to get to your purchased movies, there was nothing in my library but this delightful clip on Desperate Housewives in which there's a reference to Joe Dansak, put there as payback by his friend who writes TV shows after Joe told him that neither he nor I could stomach even one episode of Desperate Housewives.

"I can't find Monterey Pop, but look! I found this!" I pressed play and about that time noticed that Kate, a first time guest, was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

"We're just going to watch this?" she cried, gasping for air. 

We finally found Monterey Pop on my other YouTube account, which means my friends got to see my ridiculous searches I do for Teacher Mary Dansak so I can make videos like this where I spend two minutes pronouncing names of dinosaurs. I do not recommend watching.

It was time to settle and watch our feature presentation. Pennebaker lets us be onlookers, as is his signature style. There are no interviews, no commentary. But none is needed. I saw Cass Elliot's jaw drop and stay agape as she watched Janis Joplin sing "Ball and Chain," I did not need to be told she was blown far away to some other galaxy. Here are some things to know about this festival, which took place in 1967. It pre-dated Woodstock, perhaps paved the way as the gateway to the Summer of Love. For Jimi Hendrix (oh how I love him), The Who, and Janis Joplin, is was their first big American appearance, and the first major appearance before a white audience for Otis Redding. My only disappointment with the movie might be that Jimi singing "Like a Rolling Stone," a tribute to Bob Dylan who could not be there due to the motorcycle accident, was not included. Pennebaker ends the movie with 18 minutes of Ravi Shankar, which was so devastatingly beautiful that I played that segment for our granddaughters, ages 5 and 7, a few days later.

It was fitting for them so see and hear this. The night before, while driving home from visiting family, Norah Jones on the radio but otherwise quiet on the back woodsy roads, little Ruby, age 5, said, "Mimi, when I look out at the trees and I hear this beautiful song it makes me cry." 

"Remember the beautiful song you heard last night?" I said to Ruby. "That's her father. Her daddy. His name is Ravi." 

Oh we had lots of laughs and awestruck moments and yes, tears watching Monterey Pop at home with friends on a warm summer night in June.