Loggins and Messina were boogieing on stage
excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm
all rights reserved copyright 2013
1973. Loggins and Messina were boogieing on stage at an outdoor Stanford University concert in Palo Alto, California. This was the end of our tour after Europe. And this was where I was saying goodbye to the rock n roll world. We had just finished playing, so me and C.C. Collins, Tim’s old friend and percussionist were just cruising around. A hippie girl with grannie dress and frizzy hair came up to Carter C. C. Collins. He was dressed in Black Panther fatigues, black beret, a stern look on his black face.
“Are you Buddy Helm?” She asked him innocently.
He almost blanched. He struggled not to be offended. He silently pointed to me. I had to laugh. That’s the first time CC Collins was ever mistaken for a white drummer. She smiled, “I’m a friend of Katherine’s. She said you were going to be here, so I’d like to welcome you to our neighborhood, and also invite you to our Boulder Creek house for a party and also invite you to come to our work to see what we are doing at Stanford Research Institute.”
S R I; the place where every top secret wacked out super expensive spy gadget was being designed by genius inventors working under top secret conditions.
I had to bring my passport to SRI. After they cleared me, I was escorted up to my new friend’s office. He was a middle aged, long haired, post hippie wearing a sport coat, flowered shirt and a tie.. On my way into his area, I passed a few open doors, some showing rooms with big screens displaying maps of the world, being looked at by generals in uniform with lots of ribbons on their chests. This was Dr. Strangelove land. This was nineteen seventy five. There were no desk top computers, there were only mainframes, no laptops, no internet, except for the department of defense, Bank of America, ARCO, etc… and a few universities that had government defense contracts. This was the dark ages. James sat me down at a terminal,
“We want you to learn how to use our system. It will teach you..Just ask questions…here is a classified clearance for you….now see what you can do.” He walked away.
I have never been so high as when I got on line and actually talked to people around the world, live, by typing in messages. This was something that no one had done. It did not exist in the regular world. This was science fiction but real life. I started to get the hang of how this behemoth worked, I asked for the sponsors of SRI and got a very interesting list; Vandenberg Missile Research Facility caught my eye. I started to poke around.
“Who is on this computer?” scrolled across the top of the screen. James came back in a few minutes, “That’s pretty good.” he said nervously. “Vandenberg, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said excitedly, “You have data storage in Langley and in Tucson.” His eyes widened, “How did you figure that out?” It’s right behind you on the wall, the map with all the pins and ribbons on it.”
But the thing that I picked up on that was really outrageous, was something I did not even know that I had picked up on. It was their Psychic Research division on the other side of the wall where I was sitting. Yuri Geller was involved. I was soaking up their top secret project in the other room, sometimes referred to as Stargate. I didn’t know that I was an empath. But, the worldwide computer network was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Another dimension opened up for me.
excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm
all rights reserved copyright 2013