When I was in my early-20s, pop-science was appealing. Just like every other clueless overly-self confident twit, I would eagerly read about magnets, crystals, herbal remedies and imagine them positively affecting my life. Occasionally I would purchase ginseng or St. John's Wort from the Natural Foods section of Fred Meyer's Groceries, and once I even wrote a computer program that calculated biorhythms. More correctly, I copied it from somewhere, but the idea to use a scrap HP Plotter to produce a hardcopy of the biorhythm was mine. I was even so ambitious as to put a 3-line ad in the personals of the local Portland alternative newspaper advertising “BIORHYTHMS $20,” the second line reading “Certificate suitable for framing,” and a phone number of the old, brick, downtown Portland warehouse me and my business partner, Gene Ellis, who was 20 years older than me, worked out of. I didn't tell Gene because I was halfway embarrassed, though I didn't know why, so he was surprised when his friend, gaffer Robyn Willis, came to our office, newspaper in hand, jibing us.
“I want one of these biorhythms suitable for framing,” Robyn said to Gene.
Luckily, I wasn't there at the time because I heard Gene didn't take it very well. Later, I was weakly apologetic and reassured him that they were “paying customers,” and he calmed down somewhat though he was still highly suspicious and started squinting a lot.
We got a couple customers. The first I mailed but the second insisted on an address so he could pick up his personally. I was young, it was my first experience with cultish mentality; this was in the early 1980s and the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh phenomenon, with his 90 golden Rolls Royces and thousands of followers, all living the Free Love lifestyle up the river at The Big Muddy Ranch was in full swing. I knew about it, and was fascinated, primarily by the purported group sex, but the Middle-aged guy who stood in front of me, clutching his “certificate,” not even looking at it, his eyes fixed on me, wasn't living up to my imagination. I assumed he was waiting for me to say something wise, but felt entirely inadequate to the task. Gene finally hustled the guy out the door, and he didn't have to say anything more, he just squinted at me; I got the message and ignored any further biorhythm sales opportunities, anxiously waiting until the ad ran out.
Gene still lives up the road, regaling all his coffee friends about the haphazard days of the eccentric Martin Hash, but there is another connection: while traveling across Asia, my wife, Gwynne, and I met a fellow traveler, a lone 60-year old Australian woman, Sharon Harris, who had been a Bhagwany and even lived up at The Ranch during the time of biorhythms. She had a plenty of travel stories she told in her sexy accent but all I could think about was the “Free Love,” and what this gal would have looked like when she was 25.
Biorhythms
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Martin Hash
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Biorhythms
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Shamedia, Shamdemic, Shamucation, Shamlection, Shamconomy & Shamate Change
