THE BUTTER RUM CARTOON

When I was in the Army stationed in South Korea in 1969, in the days of the Great Sixties Mistake, I put an ad in the "Helix," Seattle's underground newspaper, for hip people to write to me. More than a hundred fascinating people responded, including some exceptional ones like Jan Masterjohn and her family. I answered all correspondence, and, for some reason, felt inclined to write a poem for one particular young woman. I didn't mean for the poem to make any sense at all; it was merely a lot of words put together that sounded good together. I entitled the poem "The Butter Rum Cartoon," which doesn't make any sense. I sent my one and only copy of the poem to this girl, and don't remember her name, so the poem, about a page in length, is lost forever. The only thing I remember about it is that one of the characters in it was the King of Cherry. Even though it was absolutely senseless, the girl wrote back, thrilled, and gave me her interpretation of the entire poem! To her, it not only made sense, but was profound! This event of someone making sense out of nonsense struck me, and so I later wrote a song called "The Butter Rum Cartoon," about living in a tipi in a mountain meadow and meeting my ideal woman, who was bathing in a river. My Army buddy, Bear, and I even wore T-shirts with "Butter Rum Cartoon" printed on the back. When someone asked what that meant, we didn't know what to say--finally just saying that it's a "state of mind."


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