Travelling with Antonioni to L.A. to do casting. 1968 In LA for The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders on Electra Records "akin to Waiting for Godot. It was an experienent in aural theatre." Frazier Mohawk, record producer Jac Holzman of Electra like Van Dyke Park's Song Cycle "bad album it wasn't very pleasant." Stampfel quote on not practicing.
On the Electra record, Shep does the Pledge of Allegiance...and forgets the words and leads to suggestion of a record of Shep comedy bits.
Stampfel claims that Shep was not a part of the drug-crazed mess of the band, he never was a wild drug-taker during the 60's. "I never saw him even smoke marijuana-he didn't like it. He always disliked the whole hippie-type image...a greaser, a low class hitter type."
Other Rounder people did music. Robin Remialy did the music for Mad Dog Blues and Paul Connolly of Lother for Unseen Hand. A motion person. An ultimate foe of terminal stasis.
Wrote Blind Rage, a totally punk song in 1969.
Shep with an astrologer named Nancy. Played at the Kaleidoscope, the Cheetah and opened for Pink Floyd at the Avalon Ballroom in S.F. Appeared on Laugh In. On Zabriskie Point: "He wanted political repartee and I just didn't know how. I was 24 and just wasted by the experience..."
Sep 68 to May 69 Antonioni shoots. Shep replaced with Fred Gardner to work for the Open Theatre in the "orgy Scene".
Ideological far apart. Antonioni is rhapsodic "about the emerging American radical left" While Shep held both the establishment and the rabble-rousing revolutionaries equaly in contempt.
Cole negotiates with Ted Mann for a Broadway production at the Henry Miller Theatre. Integrity, a request to script Alice's Restaurant, the hippie movie.
With Tony Richardson, Shep leaves Rome and lives in Keith Richard's estate to work on Maxagasm for the Rolling Stones (compare to Rolling Thunder) a "distorted Western for the Soul and Psyche." List of Shepardesque characters.
Writing movies for musicians, death of Brian Jones.
Hangs out with Keith Richards Stones in Godard's One Plus One.
Me and My Brother with Robert Franksmaller scale with friends. Quote by Shep on screenplays. Anonymously as a staff writer in Hollywood. "Screenplays which the studios just don't know what to do with." Angel City connection.
Film courses at Yale with Mike Rohmer, Rober Young and Stanley Kauffmann with R. Owens, Megan Terr, K. Brown.
Summer 1968 On the road with the Rounders he writes Operation Sidewinder See dedication. Young Man and Shep "intuitive untutored politics more credence in the American Indian Movement than in the trendy ideas of the Age of Aquarius. Quotes Marranca Shep's glorification of the frontier ethic...exoresses(?) a generation's legitimate agitation in the monologues. Political despair and the metaphysical agony of 60's youths. Sidewinder- from 500 optioned by Yale Rep for Jan 1969 but the black protest of 6 Drama School black students Comment by M. Feingold the literary manager for Yale blacks as "white paranoid-fantasy creatures."
A trip to the desert before going to Rome. And written while playing with the Rounders.
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