How Could You Leave and not Take Me

 

 If you’re my age think back. Back to the sixties. Not all of the sixties, just that last half. The world changed on November 22, 1963. It is said that everyone who was alive on that day can remember where they were, what they were doing when the shots rang out in Dealy Plaza and the world went mad. Plaza! It’s not a plaza. It’s an underpass to a freeway. And the so-called Texas School Book Depository evokes a mental image of a majestic storehouse for schoolbooks when in point of fact it’s a crumbling brown building, looking like an old downtown hotel you would only book a room in as a last resort.

 

It took us a full minute to get over that one. After that we welcomed The Beatles and Lyndon Johnson welcomed Vietnam. The universe is like that. For every positive there is a negative. For every Paul McCartney there is a Lyndon Johnson, and for every Rolling Stone there was The Mamas & the Papas! When The Beatles hit the boards on February 9, 1964 on the Ed Sullivan Show to entertain 73,000,000 of their screaming enthusiasts Kennedy’s brains went out the window and Elvis weren’t nothing but a hound dog. All the rules were changed and it was understood that England won the war. But while janitors were mopping up pee in the last venue the Fab Four had played California was rethinking entertainment. California’s good about that. And they jumped from Paul Anka to Puff the Magic Dragon in a New York minute. The Beach Boys, Creedence, Jan and Dean, all competed for a slice of the pie or a slice of girls hanging out in Haight Ashbury. Free love was the order of the day and only women bled so that’s where the Millennials were conceived. Now you know.

 

But in this melee one group emerged that was real. The Beatles were produced by George Martin, a super slick product of the very British music industry and Brian Epstein, who put them in matching suits and sold them to Capitol Records. Acapulco Gold produced the Mamas & the Papas!  And they were the real deal. The real California deal. In spite of their traditional sound they were outhouse crazy and had a stage presence to die for. There were two males. This was back when you could still be male. Boy meets girl, girl gets knocked up, girl has a baby, boy meets another girl. Ah, the good old days! And one of the Papas was very PROlific. Hell! He prolifed his own daughter but what the heck. . . free love, right? Have you seen Mackenzie? God had to find somebody for her. Now, where was I! There was the “hottie.” A spitting image of what you’d see on the beach or in every Cheech and Chong movie. And then there was who you really came to see. Mamma Cass! 238 pounds of pure Californian, and it showed! She appeared in a sack dress! But damn, could that kid sing and dance. Please notice that I was so unimpressed by the other three members of the group that I forgot one of them. But Mamma Cass! I’d buy her a hot dog any time.

 

Mamma Cass exemplified everywoman. She was the girl you could walk up and talk to. The girl who would eat a hotdog with you and not follow you home. You’d follow her home. She was proof that money won’t buy everything, and the California image was just a well constructed myth because most of us were constructed just like Mamma Cass Elliot.

 

Eventually the group separated and went their own ways. The Mamas & the Papas were soon forgotten and the Beatles were deified. But if you can recall you will remember California Dreaming and Monday Monday. Because that’s all you have to remember. And if you saw them sing you’d remember MaMa Cass standing there singing and swaying to the music. My baby girl has problems with her weight. She struggles every day. And I tell her there’s an angel watching over her. Mama, how could you leave and not take me?

California Dreamin