Writer Wayne Wilson reminisces:
If pressed, I’d guess that it’s 1971. I’m in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen bus wobbling through Indio en route to Joshua Tree National Park. I sift my moiling thoughts for our mission. The movie, that’s right, we’re going to film the final scenes of a Super 8 film. But where’s the camera? More to the point, where’s my hand? Whew!—right there at the end of my arm! When I reach for the glove compartment my fingers sink into the dashboard as if it’s made of putty.
Ahead the highway writhes toward the horizon, where, casting off rainbow-hued bubbles, it boils into the clouds. Hold on—are those tumbleweeds bordering the pavement? Or enormous beavers? And, by the way, who’s driving?
Nestled in back among a mélange of hysterically giggling companions, Frizz honks away on a battered tenor sax, having taken lessons for about a week. “Wow!” I say, as the notes swirl around my head in a phosphorescent helix. “That’s real funky, you know?”
Frizz puts down the instrument and shrieks with demented laughter for what seems like hours before gasping, “That was ‘Old Black Joe’!”
Bob “Frizz” Fuller 