 Welcome, Jason, to the Haydashbury Video Oral History Project. I also know you are aka John Wesley Orr, or your grandfather. And we'll get into this a little bit more. Your friends call you the Birdman. Yeah, I'm Birdman. Exactly. Can I call you Jason? Yeah, you can. Jason, let's start from the beginning. Where were you born? I was born in Macon, Georgia, a dead center of Georgia. What year? 1947, February 1947. And your parents' names? My mother's name is Carrie Teresa Orr. My father, I don't know if I want to give his name. My father was a well-known and national figure in the church. Beautiful. Yeah, that's fine. I still agree. All right, well, from your early beginnings in Georgia, I remember you saying you had a great love for trains. Yeah, I had a love for trains. My grandfather, among others, whomever I could go, would take me to the train station just to watch him come in and release his steam and all that stuff. Not necessarily take a ride. But whenever possible, they would book me on a train and by five years old, I was taking trips of my own on trains to various cities. Wow. By yourself. Yeah, and I got to know conductors. That's how I was taken care of. My mom would walk me to the train. Two individual conductors, she knew them, and I felt like a really special guy. It's like you're meant to travel. It was right there and you're used. So you were really good or some people got a reward and you got to ride on a train. West. Yeah, I always got rewards because I was good. I was a good student. I was even an early performer. Before I ever came to California, I shut down an elementary school like assembly and everybody performed. I did Elvis Presley. I took my mom shopping. I bought myself a green colored sport coat, a black shirt, a pink tie, and black pants and shoes. Wow. Yeah, and I sang holding a guitar. My teacher picked out chorus of piano. I did Don't Be Cool. Wow. Shut them down. I'm serious. How old are you? I must have been like six years old. Amazing. I wish we had a picture of that. That's amazing. So you had some early... What do you think? You got your music acting inspiration? Did it come from school or...? The music is actually kind of like the vehicle carried me through my life. I'm a single vehicle. That thread was strung first in the home I was mostly raised in Macon, Georgia. I was raised with a family for whom my mom was employed. My mom was nanny to my brothers and sisters to me. John, Joseph, John, Joe, and Helen. And to me, these were my brothers and sisters. So in actuality, in 1952, they were a millionaire fight family. And I was a little black boy, but I didn't know that yet. That's the way it should be. Yeah. And that's got something to do with, you know, my overall development things later in life. Of course. You came out to California on a train. Secretly, I found out when I was old enough to understand and know, seems to me maybe about three years later when I was around just approaching my teens, my mom explained to me that our coming to San Francisco was not just simply a reward for me, but it was part of my grandfather's concern for the safety of both myself and my mother. Oh, wow. Given that the civil rights movement was just beginning as early days kickin', right? In the South, and people were continuing to be home and be civilized, and my grandfather was afraid so he talked to my mother about bringing me to San Francisco. Wow. Got to thank him for bringing you here. So you guys came on a train, ended up in Oakland? No, it was a train trip terminated in Oakland. And then we continued across the bridge. We waited about 15, 20 minutes. And then an aunt came and drove us to San Francisco and we resided in Bayview Hunters Point. Wow. Chapter Avenue. And you said you lived on Hick Street, 1200 block? Yeah, probably about a year and a half later, my mom and I were living in the 1200 block of Page Street here. And later on, I lived just a couple of blocks up the street and I moved myself to first place every minute. 1550 Page Street. What year was this that you moved to 1550 Page? I moved in the 1550 Page Street late 1964. I know that because I met the friends, the people who were eventually going to be my housemates, roommates and best friends ever. You had a picture of that house at 1550 Page? Yeah. It's one of my favorite houses I've been here in the city. This is it. Beautiful. It's an amazing Victorian, all kinds of turrets and balconies. This balcony was our bedroom, Burby and myself, Roberta Brown. It also had gargoyles on it. And up in the witches turret, which is what we called it way back then, our friend Jim Pike lived in that turret because one double mattress exactly fit in it. And up here behind the window are my friends Greg Copeland, who's one of the most marvelous poets I know. And even then, we couldn't believe we knew a guy who could write like that. Greg is girlfriend, Judy, and there was one cat in the whole house named Mr. Stuffy. Wonderful. And you were one of the performers with the Mind Troop. Yeah. How did you get involved? Who did you meet? Tell us a story. I was one, again, that was music. And I didn't really get an early connection to music. A lot of classical music first. And then I had to be taught to accept other forms of music. But once I left high school, the most immediate thing I did was to get off, I believe it was an M Oceanview streetcar coming from San Francisco State University. On Saturdays, I was a part of a program for Musically Gifted children out at State College. And we were coming back from that. We used to always sing on the streetcar, and people would always try to book that particular car because it was gorgeous choral music. Anyway, so we get down to Market Street, and there's a big hoop to do and a lot of turmoil and stuff right in front of the Sheridan Palace Hotel. And I was due to get off there anyway because you get off at that stop and you walk over and catch the 15th Kearney and go back out to Honest Point. So, this particular day, the streets were blocked because there was a huge demonstration at the Sheridan Palace Hotel. Because the Sheridan Palace Hotel at that time didn't have any employees of color at all and specifically no black employees. A guy I knew who was later to become my closest and longest-lived friend and wanted to, Willie B. Hart, was walking and leading in song this demonstration, circling in front of the front doors of the Sheridan Palace. And as I stepped down off the streetcar, I'm like a 16-year-old kid, maybe only 15 or so, but at least 16. So, I stepped down off the car at Willie B. Hart who was a couple of years older than me and was at City College at the time. He said, hey, man! Because he couldn't remember my name. He remembered my voice. He said, hey, man, come on over here and sing with us. You can sing. Come on over here and sing. Eventually I'm telling him, but Willie, I don't know any of these songs. You know, like if you tell me Bach or Rals or you know what we used to do, I don't know these songs and he was saying they're easy to learn. You know, I'll teach you. Just walk with me. So, I started my first picket line. And again, that cyclical, crazy, the madness, the energy, the passion of all these people convinced there's something immoral and unethical going down. And you just put yourself on the line. That first night, 16-years-old, I wound up laying on very plush carpet inside the Sheraton Powell's lobby along with about 400 other people. Wow. And we were arrested and we continued to do it straight there for several weeks until they finally came to contract. And then next we moved to Ottawa, which is where I met Jeremy Hoffa. And at Ottawa, eventually came a friend, Roy Bowie, who told myself and Willie B. Hey, Jason, Willie B. There's this ad in the paper. They're looking for actors. Okay? It's a church over on Cap Street. We're going to go over and audition. You know, Willie B. and I, you know, we know how this stuff is done because like, you know, we are true revolutionaries. You use whatever you got. And so like this thing says, you need three black actors. Must be able to sing, dance, and have some political conscience. Roy Bowie says, Jake, you for sure, you're in. Okay? He wasn't so sure about his own dancing ability. So anyway, that ad was run by Ronnie Davis, founder of San Francisco Mountain Truth. We went over to this church on Cap Street. Maybe 1816, 16th in Cap, as I recall. And audition. And we auditioned by singing civil rights songs, among others, and Negro spirituals. And so we do a lot. And we were hired on the spot. That time on, Willie B. and I performed and toured in that particular performance we were hired for, civil rights and a crack a barrel. Or yeah, or the menstrual show. What year about was this, you know? We started working on that show in 65. We worked on it about eight or nine months, developing, writing everything. It had no, there was no script. Like upon, I hope to remember to do later, everything resided within the actors themselves, who themselves were the creators of the show. So there was one, no need for a script. And two, only given night, which is the way guerrilla performance performed, an actor may have different dialogue and a different feeling. Where were some of the places you performed? The menstrual show was notorious, right out the door. Where were some of the places we performed? Let me give you a longer list. Where were the places where eventually we were forbidden from performing, including at one point Stanford University, any and all campuses of the UC, University of California system. Governor Pat Brown made that particular decree. That based upon his having seen the show himself for 15 or 20 minutes, whatever he get, that this show would not be seen on any University of California campus. But once we began the tour, actually leaving San Francisco, our first performances were at the Gate Theater in Sausaleta. We were presented there by our friend and business manager in San Francisco, my trope, Bill Glenn. That was, to my recollection, the first time any poster ever said Bill Glenn presents. There was an earlier production in my trip to Candelow in which it said, Bill Glenn Productions Produces in Candelow. But the menstrual show poster with my good friend, John Broderick, their maker for that poster says at the top of the corner, Bill Glenn presents. That was at the Gate Theater. We were immediately a smash. Everywhere we went, there was publicity preceding us. So by the time we got to the succeeding city, everybody was waiting for us and the show was on. We toured once we started leaving California. Oh, first of all, we did Stanford University. We did do University of California. Hold the Gate Park. No, that show was never performed outside. It was a theater show. It was a four-wall deal. So did you ever perform in the straight theater? No, we never performed in the straight. I'll tell you a couple of places at this time now where we performed. At one point when we were being denied access to stages because of the political nature and a lot of language, the committee let us use their theater over on Broadway for a couple of months. We played a few nights a week there. What about the Lord's Park? No, but this show could not and was never performed. Because now they perform in the park, the Lord's, and then Mind Troop. With the exception of the menstrual show, I believe the menstrual show was one of the earliest of the exceptions to the Mind Troop being what we called Al Fresco Theater. But the menstrual show could not be performed outside because the menstrual shows, which were the basis for the original menstrual show, which was the title of our show, were always performed inside. They were actually early vaudeville. Right. We had a good time. We left San Francisco. The first place I recall was Denver. Presented by some young Democrats. It was a huge venue. Maybe 1,400, 1,500 people there. The museum complex. That was the first thing to let us know what was going to come later on this tour for us, the Mind Troop and the menstrual show in particular. We looked up Peter Coyote and myself and my other good friend, the three of us, Peter, Willie B. Hart and myself, were on stage just ending the performance. And then Peter says to me, Jason, come over here. He says, what is that you see towards the back of the theater? And it was a huge place. And I'm squinting through the lights. And I says, I don't know about you, brother, but I'm saying police and dopamine tensions. Oh, my goodness. And that was a sign, like I say, how explosive that show was. They brought in more police actually than there were actors on the stage. And I won't continue to tell this story because this story has already been recalibrated quite well by Peter Coyote's book. Anybody who wants to read this story or any succeeding stories on the menstrual show, I highly recommend Peter Coyote's book, Sleeping Where I Fall. And we'll find this guy, Jason Mark Alexander. I'd love to see him in that book. It's documented a photo of yourself in a menstrual show. I'd love to hold that up. I guess you're going to have to zoom in on this because time is going to make it real hard to recognize. I think we got it. Yeah, this guy right here. How old were you then? This picture actually is credited as 1965. And so that would have made me 17 at the time this picture was taken. This character is called the stud. And at 17 years old, I'm quite proud to say that among actors who were all themselves at least in their early 20s to be 17 and to be chosen to do and be the stud was an extremely, extremely great privilege. Especially at the African parties. Oh, which one were you? Oh. That's great. Also, about how long, so this is run 65, about how long were you with the mind trait? I was with them from 64 through early 67. Once the menstrual shows came to an end of this run, it was basically about two and a half years since I started myself. As I mentioned, we were from the inception, including the eight to nine months of production that went into that show. We were only two. Actually, I'm the only one. Willie B. got sick once. I'm the only one out of however many hundreds performances. I never missed a performance of that show in its entire run of approximately two and a half years. We toured the United States twice, including we played. This jet was on stage at Town Hall. Thank you. We stayed at home with Dick Gregory in that particular trip. Oh, wow. Did you get all the way to the East Coast? Yeah. We were in New York City Town Hall. From New York City, we went up to University of Buffalo and we stayed there actually a week and we were a part of like a seminar, similar to a seminar. At least there was John Barth, the writer, Robert Creely. I met Robert Creely and actually got a book from him for Love. I just saw a copy of it. Anyway, we stayed there in Buffalo for a week and then we came back to the West Coast transiting through Canada. The provinces of Canada. We played in Ontario and then we flew up to Western Canada. We did next Alberta at the University of Canada. How many people were you traveling? The menstrual show total couldn't have been. There were exactly seven actors on the stage. Six menstruals and one white guy in the middle. That guy is called the interlocutor. He's a guy in the circus. He'd be the circus master and that's how he's dressed in a tuxedo. White tie. So seven actors on the stage and then we had one guy who could do both lights and carry luggage and stuff like that. Okay. Montroup, maybe through this time you started doing a lot of photography and you're still doing photography right now? Yeah, well, that was a huge lapse. I just started taking photographs in 2002. In my past I never wanted to have photographs. You have some of them there? I'd love to see some of the ones you've done of the people and places in Golden Gate Park. All right. Let's see what I've got here. I haven't seen this album. I'm all by myself. Well, let's see. These were my first serious shots. I mean These are flowers going in the park. These are all values. I spent one entire season at the Dow View Gardens. It's beautiful. These are values. This particular one is one of my favorites. This one is called The Cosmos. They're all from the Star Cosmos. Yeah. We've got about another minute we could shoot some photos. I want to talk to you about some other things. I want to show you. I'd love to see some of this. You know, when you're taking your photos you're documenting the way it is. This is our neighborhood that hate Ashbury, the extending Golden Gate Park down the hill. Yeah, well, I want to show you the reason why Birdman is called Birdman. Yes. This is one of my better birds. This is a great blue heron. All these shots are the same bird. I'm doing the same on Spirit. He's fishing and he's just here getting ready to spear that fish. That's wonderful. You have a rapport with them. They'll come close enough to you. Actually, I'm about four and a half feet from this bird at this moment. Really, really nice. I respect it. It is a special gift. Oh yeah, totally. Beautiful. This is the first time I've seen this album in about nine months. So now in your life, what are you doing? Are you shooting some photography? Are you doing any writing? Yeah, photography is what I do daily. It's actually every day I take photographs. I was writing when I was inside. I currently live outside by choice because I'm always like nature. Sure. I'd like to recite a poem I wrote because I had to write it. Sure. Does it have a name? Yeah. Now they call me bird man. But I always knew it was Icarus blue. This poem is titled Icarus Blues. It's about my life as a boy. When I was a boy I read rabbinously almost desperately. Having so little I could claim as my own in terms of history, culture and the birthright. As you can recall few would tell the stories of the blacks, the Hispanics or the Indians. So I read the Greek tragedies, Aristophanes, Escalus and Homer desperate for some sense of myth. Something holy and fantastic. I read of Icarus attempting to fly closer to the sun than anyone had done. So what if I die? What choice did this or to remain here? I had no legend of me on the ground. I was not told of Jesse Owens and bird man. I didn't know. I remember my mother speaking of BB King playing in the small clubs on the Chitlin circuit in Georgia and I was ashamed. Not of my mother. But ashamed that BB King was not a real king. He was just a black man who could only sing the blue. Icarus was a man also but he could fly so high above the blue. Imagine the magical transition when at 18 I stood fixed on his hands who seemed to have mastered having not seen my mother fall she knew. She knew of being black in the woods of Georgia and of which black men who knew it too and could sing of it and sing. I was lucky before she passed away from me I was able to tell her mama and you he wasn't a king but he did I left Icarus on the shore and joined Junior Wells and Buddy Guy drinking Seagram 7 in a back room in a little club in Berkeley. Junior invited me in the room with the boys and I took my first drink. This liquor was hard my life like theirs had been hard no father no man to tell me I was good but here and these were full grown men loving me and we drank hard liquor and loved the sound of men singing the blue Buddy Grant a huge and friendly grand that warmed me like the liquor warmed me from the and these men not boys embraced me a young black man I should know that and these blues my mother's blues BB's blues they brought Icarus blues by Jason Marconzi it's so beautiful we want to thank you Jason we want to thank you for what you've done to contribute to the Bay Area not only to the Mime Troop in the 60's but your spirit your energy of love the spirit of love, the spirit of community and freedom for yourself and those around you that is something you're going to live with you and it's going to stay with you and when people watch this take 50 years from now they're going to know that someone like yourself was one that was of many that contributed to a great time here that not only touched San Francisco but the world so thank you my name is Rebecca Nichols I've been your moderator and we just want to thank you so much for being part of this thank you