The Naked Clash Of Civilization

Back in the mid 90’s, I frequented a bar out in Occidental, California (quite frequently). I played small town sports like tennis and soccer and would reward my good service to my health with a Sierra Nevada out of their tap.

Well, OK, I would let them put it in a glass first, and then I would enjoy the often bizarre but quite amusing atmosphere for a relaxing hour and then head home, worn out by sports, warmed up by amber, happy.

This tale is too big to tell, so I won’t tell it. I’ll point those interested in knowing this tale in the right direction, with a few links I found.

I can tell you a little bit about this tale, because “I knew people”, so you’ll have to make do with that. This tale involved a great clash of cultures. This tale involved a lack of facilities and lots and lots of naked people.

One late afternoon I sat down in the bar next to this old Jewish guy, and ordered my beer.

This man started looking at my hands with an odd fascination.

“Working hands.” he said. “The best kind.”

I smiled and nodded at him. He had thick glasses and a silver beard and classic Jewish features. There was no doubt about this man’s heritage. You didn’t even have to ask.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

“Carpentry, mostly. I’ve been an itinerant carpenter for most of my life.”

I don’t know why I added the word “itinerant”. OK, I do know why. This man looked smart. I mean real smart. Smart like the dickens. Professorial.

I wanted to let him know I could hang on his coattails if I needed to, that if he told me something smart there was a chance I could follow him. I find smart people fascinating. I was hoping to be fascinated. I wanted him to know that he could tell me something and I could understand.

“We could of used you back in the day. We had a shortage of itinerant carpenters.”

This statement confused me. I stumbled along.

“So what do you do?”

“These days? I’m a forensic musicologist.”

“I see. Interesting work?”

The man smiled. “I’m in court a lot.”

Then he laughed within himself.

“Oh the irony,” he said.


He asked my name and I told him. Then he shook my hand and introduced himself.

“Lou. Lou Gottlieb.”

“It’s a pleasure, Lou.”

“Yes. It is all very pleasurable, isn’t it?” Lou said. He had an old man’s mischievous twinkle.

Lou told me what a forensic musicologist does. We also discovered we had a mutual friend, a young British carpenter that did work for Lou and that I knew through many different channels.
When plagiarism is claimed in music, and a suit is filed, a forensic musicologist tears the music into tiny bits and compares the original work with the one accused of copying it. Lots of time testifying in courts. Lots of time spent on a computer tearing the two works apart as only a forensic musicologist could.

I talked to Lou three or four times after that first encounter. Always sitting at the bar, always pleasant and peaceful. Each time it happened, my increasing knowledge of Lou made me less and less comfortable making small talk, and my “itinerate” label just didn’t seem to be enough to hang on to his coattails anymore. I was back to being a ham-fisted carpenter, though Lou never let on he knew.

Lou deeded his property to God once in a legal manuever that kept the courts confounded for quite sometime. The problem revolved around the question "Can God own property?" The courts couldn't say that God didn't exist, so they finally wimped out and said God didn't sign the deed so the deed transfer is invalid.

Lou was a famous musician from a long ago era.

Lou lived out his later years living in a cabin with no power and no phone. (He rented a room nearby that he used as an office.) At night, he spent the quietness of his surroundings trying to learn to play a Bach piece perfectly on the piano.

Lou died about a year after our first encounter.

There was a memorial held for Lou on the property he had owned for over thirty years. Several hundred people gathered and spoke of Lou and his gifts and kindness and sense of humor and spirituality. I felt a bit like an outsider observing more as a witness than a participant. I knew Lou little, but I had started to hear and accumulate a lot of stories.

In a redwood grove on a property that had once been deeded to GOD himself, a bunch of old people started peeling off their clothes and running around naked. These old people made the stories come to life for me the way seeing Bob Dylan live takes you back to when Bob was really part of something.

Here are some snippets of news clippings about Lou and his merry past.

Interesting link for more of the scoop--