Human BE-In Lacks Sincerity
On a rain-threatened summer evening, Grand Forks’ Town Square experienced its first BE-in, a very faint echo to its counterpart over forty years ago in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. That particular Human BE-In occurred on January 14, 1967 and launched a counterculture that began to question entrenched ideas about war, civil rights, women’s rights, and the environment. Some of those same cultural and moral questions are still being debated today.
The original BE-In occurred before the great migration of hippies to Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love. It focused on liberal political stances, personal empowerment, war protests, and environmental issues. Among the participants at the San Francisco rally were Timothy Leary, the Berkeley professor who advocated the use of LSD for personal and spiritual enlightenment, Richard Alpert who later became the influential spiritual leader Ram Dass, beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, comedian Dick Gregory, and social activist Jerry Rubin. Local rock bands, who later became household names, provided the music: Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.
The Grand Forks event, however, was a pitiful blip on either the social consciousness or musical scale. Granted the original BE-In was of a different era and it was in San Francisco where a climate of social protests and community organization had been going on for awhile. But the feel of the Grand Forks event was one of artificiality. At first, I put it off as being back in reality after spending five days encamped with a new generation of activists and music lovers and older Boomers like me at the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes. There, I rubbed shoulders with people from all over the country who understand a festival subculture that is based on music, environmental issues, social activism, and being kind to one another. These are folks who bring bubbles and hula hoops to music stages and get in sync with the music and other festivalgoers. But as I looked around at about 100 people at the Town Square BE-In, it was clear that something was off.
Jason Shaefer
When I was invited to the Human BE-In, I was told that Jason Schaefer, a long-time wind energy activist in the region, would speak. I also was told that Rep. Dave Monson, the Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, a conservative Republican and farmer from Osnabrock, ND, would discuss his support of industrial hemp, a commodity that could help local farmers and also provide many useful products including cloth, oil, foods, and, what it was originally grown for, rope. The North River Ramblers were supposed to play and there was supposed to be a cutting from the Crimson Creek Players production of Hair! But as the event unfolded, even with a lot of hula hoops and bubble machines, it was clear that perhaps this was not an authentic BE-In, but a publicity stunt by the theater group to introduce their 60s-based play. I asked Jason Schaefer if he organized the event, and he told me that he had been invited to speak, that he thought it was a theater event.
Both Schaefer and Monson gave rousing speeches about their issues. And, despite it being a contrived event for local theater, it was good to hear these issues being talked in front of a cross-generational audience.
North River Ramblers
It had been a surprise to me that the North River Ramblers were playing a BE-In, but I figured that they were just the go-to band for any city event like this. They do play everywhere, and they are versatile. But they really needed a local jam band, which Grand Forks hasn’t had since the days of the Zen Mothers and Hut. The first brief number that the North River Ramblers played was an ambient drum jam with their banjo player on guitar and their guitarist/vocalist and bass man on hand drums. It sort of worked but would have been a lot more effective with a real drum circle and there is one in the city that meets at Porpoura.
Dexter Perkins, who has been an environmental activist for forty years, spoke briefly about events that occurred in the 60s. It was a nostalgic look back for us Boomers. But what was startling was a reminder that some of the issues that were uplifted forty years ago still have no solutions today.
The Crimson Creek Players made their grand entrance marching down Demers Avenue to Town Square, in costume, carrying protest signs, and singing. Those songs were all very familiar to me, but there was just so much theater there, to the point of almost making me feel slightly ridiculed for having lived through that era.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a big supporter of local theater, having done a lot of it myself in the 80s and early 90s here. But somehow creating theater on the streets made it a sham, and certainly made me feel uncomfortable. I think it was because there was the complete destruction of that wall between actor and audience that made this wrong.
Watermelon Man
What might have benefited these young actors more would have been to spend a few days at the Soo Pass Ranch. Wednesday and Thursday would have been ideal because it was then that the hardcore festivalgoers were encamped. These were the people who traveled from all over the country just for the music and the festival experience, and planned to take in every minute of it.
I also was taken aback by a statement toward the end of the BE-In by Ben Klipfel, the executive director of the Firehall Theatre and producer for the Crimson Creek Players. He said that today the US doesn’t have activists like they did in the 60s. That was just a big slap in the face for all of us who work on issues and also a slap down at folks like Jason Schaefer, Dexter Perkins, and Rep. Dave Monson. Today’s activists don’t organize Sit-Ins and BE-Ins. Those were found to be effective for raising awareness but did little else except alienate people. In order to get work done, activists need to organize and make their voices heard through petitions, email/postcard/phone campaigns. They do community organization. They get people out to vote and make sure they have all the information they need to make a sensible choice. And, they continue to work on issues long after the media lights have been shut down. The hippies and social activists of the 60s just became better organized. And, they only bring out their flower-powered attired when they are in community with one another, usually around music.
As for Grand Forks Town Square’s first BE-In, real issues were discussed in spite of the fact that this event was pure publicity. It’s too bad that this event’s organizers didn’t include Aaron Quaday from Change That Works to talk about health care reform. That would have been very much in keeping with the modern activism that is present in this city.
It was a funny event, I’ll agree. However, this is a staple of the Grand Forks counter-culture. We’re such a safe community, those who do sport an alternative lifestyle or political stance, however sincere, tend to appear as a token demographic for social movements at large. Any note of desperation or urgency is blunted by the mild and homogeneous nature of the region’s population. We’re just not a hotbed of societal ills and political unrest (not that there aren’t issues swept under the rug of our collective psyche).
So, we take what we can get. Fake hippies at worst ridicule the originals and at best inspire some real grasp of freedom’s value. The danger of portraying a cultural revolution in fictitious song and dance, bordering on trivialization, exists if the intended audience forgets the associated ideals were born of something real. It is the irony of radicalism to eradicate purpose through acceptance.
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I’m confused about why you say “real issues were discussed in spite of the fact that the event was pure publicity.” Yes, the Be-In was planned in conjunction with HAIR, but two of the main draws of the Be-In were the speakers: Jason Schaefer’s talk about wind energy and David Monson’s talk about industrialized Hemp. Both are issues that were singled out by event organizers to be highlited at the Be-In, and these issues were discussed because of the event, not in spite of it.
I wish you had interviewed Ben Klipfel, the organizer of the event. His voice is largely missing from your article, and I think he could have cleared up many of your misconceptions about this event- mostly your claim that it was a fluffy publicity stunt.
As for your dislike of street theater- you call it a “sham”- street theater has surrounded political climates for centuries- notably during the French Revolution and including 1967 San Francisco- and Klipfel and his cast deciding to break-down the fourth wall was a continuation of this tradition. They took the still relevant issues of HAIR out on the streets- to the people.
Finally, Aaron Quaday is a friend and a smart, truly good person, but your wish that he would have spoken about health care reform is off topic. Just because the organizers chose topics you wouldn’t have chosen and not health care reform, this doesn’t mean the event wasn’t a success. It just means you would have organized it differently.
The event you wanted to see couldn’t have existed- Grand Forks is not San Francisco, we are not living in 1967, the Ramblers are not the Grateful Dead, and the Town Square is not 10K Lakes. The Be-In, as it turned out, was a family event that mixed fun with social awareness. Bravo to Ben Klipfel, Jason Schaefer, David Monson, the North River Ramblers, and the cast of HAIR for taking part in the Be-In with such enthusiasm. Grand Forks needs more events like this- and more street theater- to bring us closer to matching the culture found in places like San Francisco.
I’ll second Marie’s note that credit should be given to the invitation of relevant speakers. It does not aid their causes to diminish the event as a whole. As for the publicity factor, the HAIR production no doubt benefits from having valid activists appear on the same billing. We could label this is a disingenuous ploy. We could also applaud Klipfel and his troupe for using the event as an excuse to remind people of the show’s origins, to bridge the fiction with the fact. I don’t which is truer, if either, but there is a choice to be cynical or optimistic.