How I Jammed with John Cage

Billed as "last-chance-to-see", pal Denny and I line up to hear a demi-god of mid-century avant-garde music. In reverent hush we file into the auditorium of the San Francisco Art Institute, a modernist concrete pile perched over North Beach and filled to bursting with art-school-art-stuff. I shoulder a book bag with a few beers for after.

Cage appears to light, collegiate applause. Sits at a card table in the middle of the empty stage. Two I-Ching card decks rest expectantly –one to each side of a timer. He flips a card. It signifies (to him only) a random time interval. He sets the timer and stares at it. I’m already bored. The air is filled with intention. 20-ish seconds pass and the timer stops. Ding. Cage consults the other I-Ching deck and croaks out an abstract packet of syllables: “Ghruhud.”

Another card and Cage resets the timer. Nearly a minute passes. Ding. Cage intones: “NwwwwWAH”. And this goes on. Are we really here for an hour –or more, depending on the inscrutable dictates of the I-Ching? I start thinking about my do-list and if I should get gas before going home... Ding! Cage barks: “DRrAH!”  I’m looking for the nearest exit and realize we’re stuck in the middle of a row of aesthetes and acolytes apparently taking this e-ticket ride rather sincerely. “MMMkkahuraL.” 

Then I remember the beers. Raise an eyebrow to Denny, like, want some? He nods blankly. Timer reset. About to open a beer, I now become painfully aware the silence in the room, like a cement library. Cage busts out again with fresh original composition –surely part of his plan to enlighten the plebs at 15 bucks a seat. Open a beer now? Oh it’s so quiet. Why don’t these people ever applaud so I have some cover?

My restlessness is building. Screw it. If he’s just fucking with us… well, two can play. I snap the beer top –a surprisingly bold and satisfying fizzy pop. Pssssshek!  Snickers around the room. Cage, meanwhile, Buddha-like, never takes his eyes off the timer. But then, after a beat, he smiles, but without looking up from his card table. I take his smile as approval to jam in the mix! I take another quaff and pass the tall-boy to Denny.

The Donnas’ lyric pops into my head: “I’m on my second drink, but I had few before…” No surprise then I become aware of the growing sensation of an unruly passel of air bubbles forming in my upper chest. Oh boy, the belch is imminent; I should leave. Cage bleats: YA-Arrcch.”

What happens next, I believe musicologists refer to as “call-and-response,” “motif-and-development,” “theme-and-variation,” “counterpoint.”  Without conscious intention on my part, the trapped carbonation, yearning to breathe free, verily erupts with the seismic force of a Vesuvian sneeze, rattling my brain-pan with a glorious, eye-bulging, double-gainer, four-star Buuurrraappp. 

Chuckles sift and settle around the auditorium. No response from Cage staring at his egg-timer.  There’s some enlightenment for you, John. We left early.

And that’s how I jammed with John Cage.