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The Anonymous Artists of America
Hey check this out, someone in the know took the time to write and tell us some of the things that the Anonymous Artists of America got up to after playing at the Acid Test Graduation. They sent some photos as well....This is great.....Well, we had quite a run. Scrounged up 1200 acres of prime high altitude Mother Earth in Huerfano county, RedWing Colorado. Got there on our very own psychedelic bus after dodging bullets in Chimayo New Mexico. Won over the locals by application of spontaneous fits of glee and nudity in public places. Packed the Walsenburg bars with cowboys, Indians, Chicanos. We got together with the neighboring communes and locals and learned to farm without water, pitch tipis, hunt, fish, fix all and everything. We built (along with the Medical Opera, another SF group from back in the day) a Free clinic that endures. Also got very involved with the local schools and built a great school building with total free labor. The school in Gardner is still a model for early childhood education. The band eventually learned to tune the instruments. Tried everything we could to keep the thing going. Not a lot of resources at that altitude. We tried Rattlesnake milking for anti-venom among other entrepreneurial efforts. Eventually one AAA'er started growing high altitude perennials and that nursery persists to this day, with contracts for highway landscaping throught the West. We were about 60 people for the first couple years. Got real good with long handled fool tools, (shovels). That number dwindled to a hard core of thirty or so. The population remained high until around 1980. Today there's probably 15 or so still on the land. The Diaspora was typical. We were a mix of all sorts. PhD's, illiterates, fugitives from the gummint, a social smorgasbord. Hence there are AAA vets still playing music, doing brain surgery, building quantum computers (top secret), making money and starving. Some are dead. (what is it? How do you keep drummers alive?) Some are living. Some are in Jail. We were prolific, had zillions of kids (what causes that? I'd like to know). Me? I had an artworld career that took a lot of effort. Taught for a while then married a Norwegian woman and got mixed up in this translation company where I do computer stuff. You want more? Pester me. Or better, read Peter Coyote's "Sleeping where I Fall". He talks about AAA a little bit. Loved "look for a kool Place." We are in the process of digitizing and synching a bunch of footage from those days as well. Anonymous
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