It was loud and very silly and bouncy, the razzmatazz band introduction that filled mj’s head. Then a soprano sang some lines of nonsense:

If your mind is in a dither

And your heart is in a haaze,

I'll haze your dither and dither your haze

With the magic phraaase...¹

A poor little super-tyrannized Miss-Mousie-kind-of Cinderella had learned from this song how to forget about her abusive-tyrant problems: by singing, dancing, and marching around with a silly musical group, and mouthing formulas that sounded fancy but were meaningless.

And mj lorenzo, years after this night of storytelling about a tyrant, having spent those years trying to absorb, among other things, Carlos Castaneda’s multi-volume study of Yaqui shamanic lore,² finally realized one day that Bill Blackburn, when he had mustered his inner forces in 1972 to deal as tellingly as he could with a very ornery Fred Waring tyrant, had been forced to dig up from within himself, essentially, from his personal storehouse of tribal memory, a realm of psychological practition that had been known to many indigenous New World tribes for centuries. Bill had tapped into an organized field of knowledge that could lend tribal members a ‘psychological finesse’³ for neutralizing and outwitting the malevolence of people who had gained tyrannical control over them somehow. Carlos Castaneda had told the story of how a Yaqui shaman, don Juan himself, had taught him this technical knowledge; and he described that know-how as:

Years later, in other words, mj lorenzo finally understood that Bill, at this moment in the evening, was about to begin his recounting of a harrowing climb he had made up a mountain peak called Fred Waring. And Bill’s story would have to include, perforce, in good Indian story-telling fashion, a careful laying out of every last one of the many ‘warrior attributes’ Bill had needed to muster from within himself in order to triumph over that crazy mountain, Fred Waring, so that a young brave like mj could learn from the story what skills he might need, mj lorenzo himself, in order to climb such a crazy mountain as Fred, if he ever came up against such a person and plight.

Learning to deal with tyrannical persons in positions of power had been an important part of a boy’s education in many New World tribes, apparently; especially after European White Man arrived. 

"But anyway," said Bill, "so now the big discussion." He dropped his voice: "Over who do we tell first, Fred or Poley." His tone on the word ‘first’ was a touch sarcastic. "Right?

“And I said to her," Bill clowned his indignation to show what he had felt on that day of the ‘big discussion’: "'I'm gonna tell Fred! He's my boss! That's the only one that means anything to me! I think he should know first!'"

He heaved a big sigh and resumed with a more neutral tone: "So, the next day I go over to the office and I say to Paul Waring, Fred’s son, 'Paul, I'm gettin' married’.

"'Wha –‘?"

Bill already sounded done in: "'I'm gettin' married to Betty Ann’.

"He said, 'Have you thought this out’?

"And I said, 'Yeh. Yeh, you know me.” Bill was weary in tone still. “’I'm not going to jump off the deep end’.

"He says –," Bill lowered his voice to a near-whisper, 'Does Dad know’?

"And I said, 'No, but I'm gonna tell 'im today’.

"So I'd called Fred’s house that morning. And he'd already left. So I said, 'What time will he be back’? Virginia says, 'Why’?

“I say," and here Bill did a peeved version of the younger Bill Blackburn suitor who had felt that life owed him a right to marry, as he chose, without piles of crap from Uncle Rat: "'Because I've got somethin' I have to talk to 'im about'."

"'Noontime’, she said.

"So I left the office about 12:15. I stopped in to see Betty Ann. Right?”

Bill looked at his wife and registered her intense silence as accord. She cleared his story for takeoff by that intense silence, in other words; though she knew the story would reveal her as the wimp that she had been too often, when it came to dealing with Fred Waring.

Since she had ducked out of the real fight against Fred, then she had to stay in this storytelling fight against Fred, at the very least, officially registered on Sears tape as backing Bill’s story. That was the least Bill required. He had to have her explicit, or at least implied, permission, every time he told the story; permission to use her as a very important object lesson for young braves and squaws of the tribe, in: how NOT to climb the crazy mountain called Fred Waring.

“I said, 'I'm goin' over to tell Fred now’.

Bill stage-acted a hysterical wavering moan, in extremis: "'Oh my God! Oh I'm gonna, I'm gonna, go fishin' or somethin’. This is the way she reacted. Is this true?"

"Probably, yeh," Betty Ann confessed with a grin aimed at mj and a sheepish shrug for Bill.

Her husband was satisfied, because now he had her express permission to go on. "I said, 'There's nothin' to be afraid of. What can the man say’? And she was –. This woman was a nervous wreck over this thing." Bill quavered: "'W'l do it now, wee-ill you, please, Bee-ill’?” He whispered: "'And tell him not to come over here. I don't wanna see him after you tell 'im'."

Dlune laughed and it helped Betty Ann laugh at herself despite embarrassment.

Now a baritone tried to help Cinderella forget her plight:

If you're chased a-round by trou-bles

And you're fol-lowed by a jinx,

I'll jinx your trou-bles

And trou-ble your jinx

In less than for-ty winks....

Bill chafed at the implications. "The thing she irritated me about: she had no guts. She would not face Poley and Yvette; she would not face Fred. And she said," and he acted a very cute little queen: “‘Well, that's the man’s job. You’re supposed to be brave’.

“I wanted her to go with me!

"Can you imagine how you would feel, mj? I have to go beggin' everybody's permission to marry a woman, and –."

Yes, mj lorenzo could imagine. Of course. BUT:... he was determined to stay impartial and so could think of no better show of sympathy than to laugh neutrally: "Ah CHAH HA! hah-ha-hah!” And even at that he laughed so hard he worried he’d laughed too much.

Dlune was another matter though. She remained an unpredictable factor in mj’s plans for the interview. It hadn’t occurred to her yet, apparently, that if she took staunch sides, her husband’s plans for his important interview might blow kaflooey.

"It wasn't even her father," Dlune said, siding with Bill, in clear criticism of her friend, Betty Ann.

"Yeh!" said Bill.

One might have thought Betty Ann was out of town, the way people talked about her as if absent, picking her apart. Dlune was heartless: "Not one of those people was her father."

But Betty Ann was home indeed, and she sat in inscrutable silence, probably debating the question silently: of which one of the many father figures in her life had, in all actuality, BEEN the one who had come closest to feeling like a true father to her little orphaned-Annie self. Maybe it had been Fred Waring, after all, and not Bill.

One of her many father figures, old-man Poley, beat away at the bass drum now:

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Tonic-dominant-tonic-dominant went the band, a very basic and corny march tune that painted a picture of a parade of cartoon characters:

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

Bill pressed ahead regardless of it all. "So, here we go! She said to me," he did the part of a helpless and very feminine Betty Ann: "'It's really exciting you're being so brave about this’!

“I said," and he said it angrily: "'Brave about what! These people have no legal hold over you'!"⁵

The whole varmint chorus sang now:

Sa-li-ga-dooo-la men-chi-ga-booo-la

Bib-bi-di bob-bi-di boooo.

Put 'em to-geth-er and what'-ve you got?

Bib-bi-di bob-bi-di boooo...

And Poley on his bass drum went:

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

"So I went over to Fred's house to see him. Now it's lunchtime. And Virginia says, 'Oh my God you just missed him’. I said, 'Where did he go now’? She says, 'He went over to the Inn to have lunch with somebody’. So I went back to Betty Ann's and I told Betty Ann, 'He just left’. And she had that look like she didn't believe me.

“Now it's gettin' ludicrous, me chasin' Fred Waring all over the place to tell him we're gettin' married, and Betty Ann thinkin' I'm not.

"So I said –." Bill did a brave frog suitor, using a tone of 'trust me' to address a quite fragile Miss Cinderella Mousie in carefully measured frog suitor phrases: "'I'm going over to the Inn. He's havin' lunch with somebody. When he finishes with lunch, I'll see him."

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

Sa-li-ga-doo-la men-chi-ga-boo-la

Bib-bi-di bob-bi-di boo.

It'-ll do mag-ic, be-lieve it or not.

Bib-bi-di bob-bi-di boo...

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Bill got louder, as if to put irritation behind him: "By the time I got to the Inn he was out playin' golf! I went all over that Inn. They said," Bill used a solicitous maître d’ tone: "'No, he's not in the Dining Room. He was here’.

“All the while Fred's runnin' around stayin' away from me. He doesn't wanna hear this. I really believe this.

“So, I said: 'Would you do me a favor, have him give me a call, when he comes in? It's very important I contact him’.

“As a matter of fact it went on for two days, me tryin' to find Fred.”

Whereas, under normal conditions, he could find him in seconds.

"So finally I said, 'Well screw it, I'm gonna sit right in this Inn till he walks in, and I'm gonna tell 'im. 'Cause I'm not going to have this thing –. And then he'll say later, "You never told me." Y'know. If he wants to fire me because I'm marryin' her, that's fine. But I'm not gonna have him fire me because I didn't tell him we were gettin' married, when I was chasin' around tryin'.

"So I sat there and sat there, and finally Fred –. Fred shows up.” Bill’s irritation lessened. “He walks in and he says, 'Hello, Bill, what are you doing here’?” It was the most sincere father figure in the world. Not a hint of affectation, nor a suggestion he may have heard Bill was looking for him.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Sa-li-ga-dooo-la meeeeans,

Mag-i-ca-boo-la-roooooo.

But the thing-a-ma-bob that does the job is

Bib-bi-di bob-bi-di BOOoooo.

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

"I said," Bill portrayed a suitor-Bill who spoke softly with sincere feeling that was contained: "'I've left messages all over for you. I've been tryin' to see you. It's very important. May I have a moment of your time alone’?

"He says, 'Yes, come on in the office’, and he goes in.” Bill’s 72-year-old Fred Waring was surprisingly kindly, interested, and even uncharacteristically calm.

“He's very nonchalant about this whole thing.

"I sat there, and sat there. Until he decided to sit down; and when he sat down I said, 'Well –’. What were the exact words I said?

“'Cause this is important," Bill tried to remember exactly what he had said. "I said, 'You know I've been seeing Betty Ann’.

"And he said to me, 'Most of the time, I'd say’, or some very sarcastic thing.

"I said, 'Well –', some sarcastic thing back, 'cause it pissed me off that he said that.

"I said, 'I've asked Betty Ann to marry me’.

"He said, 'What did she say’?

"I said, 'She said, "Yes".'

"He says, 'Oh'."

Bill got loud: "'We haven't told anybody else, and I wanna tell you first, 'cause you're always sayin' people don't tell you anything. I think you have a right to know, since we both work in your organization’.

Obviously, the new frog prince had to mouth the old Uncle-Rat regime platitudes, if he wanted any concessions at all from Uncle Rat.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

And the Fred Waring in mj’s head, just as at the concert in Washington, New Jersey, while still conducting, grabbed the mike and sang with the high-pitched silly voice of an animated cartoon rat:

BibbidibobbidiBOOO!

Bill laughed and got serious again: "And Fred jumped up and said, 'That's the best news I've had in months’!” Bill’s tone was sincere. “’That's wonderful’.”

Bill was loud now, and excited: "And he put his arm around me, and I sat there all ready to fight! I was ready to fight, I was waitin': 'Say somethin', you son-of-a –‘.  You know that attitude?

“And he says, 'That's wonderful’! Bill made sure that his Fred Waring sounded caring: ‘When are you going to get married’? And at this point my mouth was hangin' open. I didn't know what to –....

"Then he said –." Bill avoided any appearance of affectation in his portrayal of Fred: "'Do me a favor. You haven't told Poley? I'm the first one you told’? He asked me several people, if I had told them. He said, 'Well, I'm the first one’? Bill’s Fred seemed to hesitate for a second to ask such a selfish question, yet he proceeded to repeat the question several times, mentioning different people, even though he had already been told plainly by Bill, very plainly, he was the first one to know. Slowly Fred was finding his own conniving complicated self again.

"And I said, 'Yes. I told you that’!

"NTHUH!" mj reacted, laughing, "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha," letting go a part of the tension that his friend must have felt, crawling on hands and knees before this hair-raisingly unpredictable boss, regarding a matter that was rightfully none of the boss’s business.

The fact was, that over the years Fred Waring had surrounded himself with people who had given in to him. He had accumulated ever more power over them thereby, in hundreds of tiny, insidious ways that required a very fat textbook to describe. He had made no distinction between work life and personal life and had ended up dominating his employees’ private lives thereby as well as their professional musicians’ lives; which meant that Bill’s case was just one of hundreds of cases of severe employee abuse by Fred over the years. And the sad thing was, most of Fred Waring’s employees had not been as good as Bill Blackburn at defending their interests and so had ended up getting trampled. And probably as a result of losing a clear sense of who they were any more, an abnormally high percentage of them had become grave alcoholics.

All anyone really wanted was happiness that was constant and unfailing, as the guru said on his tapes, and yet they kept looking for happiness in things that were bound to fail them; even though true happiness had always been just around the corner, if they had only made the effort to find that constant and unfailing thing, by finding a Spiritual Master who could show them how to do it.⁶

Bill looked at his smiling friend, mj. "This is very important to this man. You don't be-LIEVE how important it is. He said –." Bill was back home in familiar territory now, back to the scheming schemer, Fred, the one that was loved but feared, the jealous god who had to control everything and everybody around him, the man who was neither surrendered nor kindly: “He said, 'Well, may I make some suggestions? I wanna be a part of this. I'd like to help’. He said," Bill used a warning tone: "'Don't tell Poley’.

"I said, 'Well, Poley's gotta know’.

"He said," the tone was decided: "'Let me handle it. Let me open the door. Now I've known Poley. I've grown up with him. Don't be a wise guy, Bill. Let me handle it’!

"I said, 'Be my guest’!

Mj laughed, and Dlune sang a titter.

"He says," 'When I finish with Poley, I'll tell him not to cause problems for you kids now, 'cause he will'."

Mj snorted a sort of laugh, still itching in every bone for every chapter and verse of Bill’s goofy gospel story. Poley would indeed cause problems for Bill and Betty Ann before it was over, a few of which were so memorable mj could count them on the fingers of his left hand.

Boom, boom, boom, boom,

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

While booming on the bass drum with his foot, Poley grabbed a mike and sang like a soused mouse:

Vibithy bovidy BOOoo!

Boom!!!!

Omnium departum.

Scatter'um to hole-um.

And that was the end of that song, thank goodness.

Castaneda had said that an expert warrior when confronting a ‘petty tyrant’, someone like Fred, for instance (a good example of what Castaneda meant by the term ‘petty tyrant’), would never use all weapons at once, but would save a very special trick for last resort: ‘an ultimate confrontation, when warriors are facing the firing squad, so to speak’.⁷ 

And Bill was still headed for such a point in his story, mj knew. And the crazy interviewer itched to get there fast but had to wait, because a careful storyteller with a serious case to prosecute had to build his case, chapter by chapter, taking all night if necessary; as Bill had done during their first interview, when he had been forced to prove to mj, one tiny point of evidence at a time, that Fred Waring had been an impossibly abusive tyrant; since mj, that whole night, had refused to believe such a thing possible. 

An excited mj focused on his wave, trying to calm himself down. He was happy to have discovered it.

But he was not thankful enough, maybe, in all truth; because he had not had to work very hard to come by it, and could hardly thank the guru, whom he had never met. The guru had said on a tape that most people began a search for truth only after they realized that something was missing from their life.⁸ They reached a point of dramatic realization and began a search, sometimes searching for years. But in mj’s case, ‘truth’, or ‘happiness’, or whatever you chose to call it, had just descended upon him by luck or chance, via Joey. He had not been looking for anything, really. Had he? He had just been going about things assuming he was reasonably okay the way he was. Right? And didn’t that mean that he, mj lorenzo, did not fit the guru’s nifty description of things?

Or had he forgotten some part of his own story one more time? Maybe. Just as he had forgotten important parts of his own story so often, until, every time, he would be reminded painfully somehow of the truth about himself, such as the desperate need he had always felt for real happiness of a lasting kind. In that case the guru was right again.

And in this manner, Dr. Lorenzo continued for a long time, from the night of this interview forward, all of the rest of his life, virtually, to lose battle after battle with the guru in his own mind, over which of the two of them had understood mj lorenzo more correctly.

¹  “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” by David, Hoffman and Livingston, was the ‘Magic Song’ in Walt Disney’s movie, “Cinderella.”

²  Castaneda’s books were well known in the nineteen seventies, and then his popularity waned. The most famous of his books, perhaps, was the first in the series, The Teachings of don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1969). In 1971 came A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with don Juan, and in 1972, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of don Juan.

³  Bruce Trigger devised the term ‘psychological finesse’ to describe the Huron tribe’s knack for dealing psychologically with tyranny and other difficult aspects of life, in his groundbreaking ethnohistory of the Huron (and history of their destruction), The Children of Aataentsic (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976; paperback edition, 1987).

⁴  Castaneda, The Fire from Within, p. 18. Castaneda’s ‘attributes of warriorship’ were all non-material and thus psychological. All four ‘attributes’ had to remain in play while a ‘warrior’ who was trained in this kind of psychological ‘warfare’ continued to deal with a tyrant over a period of time; but they operated independently, just as four mountain climbers ascending on four sides of a mountain simultaneously would operate independently, finally meeting only at the top. The final moment when all attributes came together ‘at the top of the mountain’ of tyranny being conquered, would be the moment when tyranny was finally conquered. Castaneda said that don Juan taught that these four attributes were: forbearance, timing, control and discipline; and each one of these words he defined in a careful and special way.

⁵  Virginia Waring, in her 1997 biography of her husband, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, attempted to describe the emotional demands of being one of Fred’s ‘Pennsylvanians’ in a chapter entitled “Crucible of Professionals.” She attempted to explain and justify Fred’s legendary anger and ‘paternalism’ toward his Pennsylvanians over the years, explaining it as a ‘normal’ reaction of an older man toward his much younger staff. The Blackburns, however, and Bill especially, had gone mostly negative on Fred’s heavy-handed ‘normal’ ‘paternalism’ by 1974 (to put it mildly and politely).

⁶   The Living Master, p. 25ff. Chapter III, “Guru Maharaj Ji,” explains why a masterful teacher is necessary for discovering and experiencing ultimate truth, peace and happiness, approaching the subject from various angles (pp. 23-39).

⁷  Castaneda, op. cit., p. 18.

⁸   The Living Master, p. 7.