Rock and Roles with Danny Goldberg

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Ram Dass has suggested that we should think of ourselves in terms of “souls, not roles.” Out of this concept came a new podcast "Rock and Roles" hosted by Danny Goldberg. Danny has made his living in the rock and roll business as a journalist, PR guy, record company President and manager since the late 1960's when he was still a teenager. "Rock and Roles" explores how music has both drawn Danny closer to spirituality—and also helped snare him in an obsession with his “role” in the business including concerns about money, status, or seeing his name in print.

Ep. 1 - Music is the Bridge

Danny Goldberg introduces his Rock and Roles podcast with Raghu - Danny’s history in the music business with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Kurt Cobain is counterbalanced by his 40 odd year relationship to the path of Bhakti Yoga. Music of course is the bridge: “We were blessed with this moment in time when pop and mass appeal culture and music that could make you feel sexy and alive coincided with a certain level of spirituality”. Raghu brings up another moment in time where mindfulness seemed to transmute anger roles and Danny counters with the his idea of mindful triggers.

Ep. 2 - Paul Krassner and the hippie idea

Paul Krassner is was one of the central figures of the counter-culture of the late nineteen sixties. He was one of the founders of the Yippies . He was a member of the Merry Pranksters. He first took LSD in 1965 at Millbrook when Tim Leary and Richard Alpert (now known,of course as Ram Dass) lived there. He was the Editor of Lenny Bruce’s autobiography ,”How To Talk Dirty And Influence People,” Most notably he was the Editor and The Realist an indispensable magazine for hippies and those who try to understand us. He was a contemporary and friend of Allen Ginsberg, Wavy Gravy, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs ,and Abbie Hoffman among others.
In the decades since, Paul has written a couple of dozen books, recorded six albums (for labels I ran) and remained an important satirist and social commentator.
At various times he has referred to his spiritual beliefs as a “radical atheist,” , “zen bastard,” and “free thinker.” Referring to his first LSD trip he says . “I realized I had to play with the mystery. Absurdity became my religion”. Yet when I turned off the microphone after this podcast and said goodbye and “God bless you Paul,” he instantly replied “God bless you too. Fooled you didn't I?
Paul quotes Mark Twain as saying that there is no laughter in heaven. For the record, I disagree with both of them. In fact when Paul laughs and makes others do so---that itself is a neighborhood in heaven.

Ep. 3 - Bobby Miller: From Studio 54 to the Divine Mother

Like me, Bobby Miller co-exists in different worlds. He is a vibrant and pragmatic success in the worlds of art, entertainment and fashion and is also a mystic and a bhakti.
Bobby has published eighteen books of his photos including the recently re-issued “Fabulous! A Photographic Diary of Studio 54: REDUX”.
His work has been exhibited in NYC, Palm Springs and Provincetown at AMP Gallery, where currently he has an exhibit called “Superstarz” which includes photos of Grace Jones, Elton John, John Belushi, Donna Summer, Gloria Swanson, Andy Warhol, Muhammed Ali, and Truman Capote among others.
He is also the author of four books of poetry and is included in The 1995 American Book Award – winning "Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Café."
Bobby is also a teacher of mediation and yoga. He was and is a student of my spiritual teacher Hilda Charlton who I met in the early nineteen seventies via Ram Dass . Hilda passed away in 1988 although to many of us she is still an extremely vivid presence in our daily lives. Bobby is one of my role models in terms of his balance between ardent love for God and a cheerful non-judgmental love for those who don’t share his spiritual ideas or beliefs.

Ep. 4 - Wavy Gravy

The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir once called Wavy Gravy “a saint in a clown suit.” Wavy started his career as Hugh Romney, a poet and avant- garde comedian in the Beatnik era of the late nineteen fifties. A friend and protégé of Lenny Bruce and Allen Ginsberg, Wavy had the idea to combine poetry readings with folk and jazz in Greenwich Village in the early sixties, and was Bob Dylan’s roommate when Dylan wrote “A Hard Rain A Gonna Fall” He was then a pioneer of the purest aspect of hippie culture, a protégé of Ken Kesey. Wavy and others then formed the commune The Hog Farm which toured America in the sixties bringing psychedelic notions of peace and love to the heartland and was famously in charge of security, food, and chilling out people with bad trips at the Woodstock Festival. Soon thereafter he was given the name Wavy Gravy by BB King. Wavy was also deeply involved in the movement to stop the War in Viet Nam. I recently went to a Graham Nash show where he told the audience that he wrote the song “Chicago” about the 1968 protest outside of the Democratic Convention explicitly at Wavy’s suggestion and Wavy was also involved with may direct actions to end the war. SEVA has been funded, in part by a series of benefit concerts Wavy has created over the years featuring the Grateful Dead, Jackson Brow, Buffy Saint Marie, Crosby Stills and Nash Bonnie Raitt and Steve Earle among others. "When Wavy Gravy calls, you don’t say no to the guy," says David Crosby. "All he wants to do it help people." Wavy also started and still runs He started Camp Winnarainbow a circus and performing arts camp for all ages. He is the author of two books The Hog Farm and Friends (1974) and Something Good For A Change: Random Notes On Peace Thru Living (1992) and is the subject a great documentary directed by Michelle Esick called Saint Misbehavin’

Ep. 5 - Ben Cohen

Ben Cohen , along with his long time friend Jerry Greenfield, was a founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream who ran it for its first twenty-two years of existence as it grew form a single ice cream shop in Burlington, Vermont to an internationally known and loved brand of gourmet ice cream. Ben is a role model for hundreds of independent business owners who emulate the Ben and Jerry’s model of a socially conscious corporation. From the outset, Ben and Jerry’s gave a percentage of their profits to charity, gave employees generous benefits, used only environmentally sound ingredients, and supported many humanitarian causes directly including Farm Aid, and the Children’s Defense Fund.
Inspired by many aspects of sixties counter-culture (two of Ben and Jerry’s most popular flavors were Cherry Garcia and Wavy Gravy, ) Ben has dedicated his post corporate life to activism in service of his ideas: peace and love. He also has the gift of making work and activism feel like fun. His current project, Stamp Stampede is a grass roots campaign to reduce the influence of money in politics.
Ben claims not to follow any particular path but the more I get to know him, the more I feel that aspiring Bodhisatvas could do a lot worse than to follow his vibe, his spirit and his example.

Ep. 6 - Rick Jarow

Rick Jarow, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Vasser College and is the author of the books “Creating the Work You Love, and“The Alchemy of Abundance.”He is a pioneer of the “anti-career movement,” who integrates an awareness of many spiritual traditions with the pressures of day to day Western life.
At age 19, Rick left Harvard University and traveled for seven years throughout Europe and India. This pilgrimage is partially recounted in his first book, “In Search of the Sacred. At age 26, he returned to the West to complete a doctoral program at Columbia University, where he received a Ph.D. in Indian Languages and Literatures and in New York he became also a student of Hilda Charlton for many of the years when I also attended Hilda’s meetings and mediations.

Ep. 7 - Sara Davidson

I asked David Silver to join me in this podcast as he, Sara Davidson and I have been friends for many decades yet we have rarely all been in a room at the same time.
Since the nineteen seventies, Sara has provided a unique journalistic bridge between various kinds of new age and traditional spirituality and the worlds of American literature of journalism.
Sara did one of the first in depth articles on Ram Dass for Ramparts Magazine in 1971. (“Baba Ram Dass: The Metamorphic Journey of Richard Alpert”) Her most recent book is “The December Project” based on two years of conversations with Reb Zalman-Schacter Shalomi the founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement contemplating and leading up to his death.
Sara is also the author of the novel “Loose Change” which was later turned into a TV mini-series and “Joan: Forty Years of Life, Loss, and Friendship with Joan Didion,” as well as a half dozen other books and dozens of articles for magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone.
Sara also has written and produced a number of television series. She created the series "Jack and Mike and Heartbeat" and she was the co-executive producer of "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman". For more info on Sara and her work go to saradavidson.com

Ep. 8 - Nicholas Roerich: Mystic and Painter

This podcast is a conversation between David Silver and myself about the Russian mystic and painter Nicholas Roerich. Roerich, who died in 1947 also lived in the United States for many years during the nineteen thirties and died in India.
He and his wife Helena Roerich were deeply connected to the Masters of the Great White Lodge, best known in writings about Theosophy and they created a path called Agni Yoga. Roerich’s paintings, his greatest legacy were vivid colorful renditions of saints from all religions as well as many sites in nature, particularly the Himalayas.
Several hundred of Roerich’s paintings are on permanent exhibit at the Roerich Museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. (Details and examples of dozens of the paintings at Roerich.org).
Though large forgotten in modern culture, Roerich had a huge influence on culture and politics of the first half of the twentieth century. In the U.S. he became close to both Henry Wallace and Franklin Roosevelt (in mid thirties went on an expedition to China and Mongolia on behalf of the US Dept. of Agriculture).
Roerich also conceived of a symbol called the “pax cultura” that was to be placed on artistic institutions so that during war time they would be spared in a similar way that the red cross was designed to signify hospitals. Thirty-five nations, including the U.S. signed the”Roerich Pact” to that effect but the brutality of World War II overcame its noble intentions.
Later, in India Roerich befriended future leaders Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Ghandi.
In the world of arts, Roerich was an international force for elevating the purpose and stature of the arts and was a close friend and associate of Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Rabindranath Tagore, and H.G. Wells, among others as well as Igor Stravinsky for whom Roerich designed the sets for the famous and infamous debut of “Rites of Spring” in Paris in 1913.

Ep. 9 - Rosanna Arquette

Rosanna Arquette has functioned at a very high level in many aspects of the entertainment business for many decades while staying faithful to her hippie roots (she grew up in a commune).
Rosanna has been in more than seventy films and dozens of TV shows working with such legendary directors as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino and featured in contemporary cable drama in roles on “Girls” and Ray Donovan.” She has been on the cover of Rolling Stone and hosted Saturday Night Live and has directed documentaries and music videos.
She is also an activist and a mystic and a passionate champion of music. I have long marveled at how she can keep one part of herself firmly planted in the ever changing zeitgeist of Hollywood and others in the beautiful mist of art and transcendence.

Ep. 10 - Eric Alterman

I had fun talking to my favorite intellectual, my friend Eric Alterman (who claims that he doesn't believe in God) about his Torah studies and the meaning of life and liberalism. Eric is The Liberal Media columnist for The Nation and the author of ten books, including most recently Inequality and One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment, Year One), and The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama. I first met him a decade ago after reading his still relevant What Liberal Media? and we soon developed the start of friendship which revolved a lot around talking about the meaning of life but I still learned a lot via the alchemy and formality of doing a podcast with him. Eric is also a music freak who wrote the book Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen and is a Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, He has also been the winner of the George Orwell Award, the Jack London Literary Prize and the Mirror Award for media criticism, and has been a Hoover Institution Media Fellow at Stanford University.