My stepbrother, Matthew, inherited a lot of money from his grandparents and wanted to buy me a gift. Since he was a meditation and yoga teacher he wanted the gift to be in the genre of spiritual recovery and renewal. Because I live in California, he picked a place called Esalen, which is up north, near Big Sur and Monterey. I had never really heard much about the place and figured it would be fun. Little did I realize what I would be getting myself into. I found out that Esalen, with its very colorful history, means many things to many different people.
Matthew chose a Buddhist Leadership class for me and the retreat was for a whole weekend. It included a nice room and meals. I don’t remember exactly why, but I needed to carpool with someone from L.A. to get there. I think my car was in the shop, like always. I used to own old, classic Mustang muscle cars. They were in the shop more often than on the road. I once owned a muscle car that was on the road for seven minutes and then spent six months in my driveway. I don’t even want to get into that one, ever, really. Maybe the Buddhist Leadership class will help me from getting sidetracked in stories like this one.
Anyway, for some dumb reason, I needed a ride. I heard somehow that there was a ride sharing posting thing at Esalen, or maybe it was online or something, for people who wanted to carpool. I found some lady in Hollywood who was driving up who could give me a ride.
Remember: I had zero knowledge of Esalen and I didn’t do any research on it because back then, the Internet was just starting and I don’t think I even had any interest in it at the time. When the Internet first came out I thought it was stupid and like, why would anyone want to care about that? It looked like it was just for computer geeks and losers. I was stupid back then and afraid of computers, and only used computers for my studio and didn’t even know how they worked.
I’ve come a long way, baby.
I don’t remember the name of the carpool lady, or really who she was, but I do remember a few things. She picked me up on time and we shook hands and headed on out. She was probably ten years older than me, okay looking, and seemed pretty cool.
At first, that is.
It was about a four or five hour drive, so we had plenty of time to get to know each other. We started out not saying much, but it didn’t take long to get into a bunch of stuff. She told me all about Esalen and how it came to be, etc. I didn’t realize that it had such a rich history and that it was the cool hangout in the ’60′s for Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Bob Dylan and all those stoner, druggy heroes from the good old days. She described it as basically a rich kid’s house with a bunch of land on a cliff by the ocean with a bunch of drug and sex addicts running around naked, singing Kum-bay-ah. Overall, it sounded pretty cool.
By the time we got to Esalen, I’d heard enough from this chick and was glad to be getting out of her car. I can only take about three or four hours of hanging out in a closed environment with a wacky chick before it just gets old, man. Maybe if she was a little younger and hotter I could have been able to hang a little bit better, but she was really getting on my nerves towards the end of the trip.
She told me that she wasn’t going back to L.A. after her stay at Esalen and that I had to find a ride back. She said it would be easy and that people were always getting rides back to L.A. and that I would have no trouble.
I found my way to where I was supposed to check in and got my room key. I was supposed to have a roommate, but he wasn’t there yet.

I had a little time to kill and started poking around a little, like I always do when I’m somewhere new. The actual place that I was staying at was really nice; it looked like a big old house with about 20 rooms and a big downstairs living room where the class was going to be. It sort of looked like a big old bed and breakfast joint.
Since I was a little bit early, the guys running the weekend class were downstairs in the big living room, frantically organizing all their little papers and posters and graphs and stuff. I walked in and said hi and asked them if they were the leadership guys and they said they were. They looked a little annoyed and nervous because they weren’t quite ready and I was early and all eager and happy. Then I asked them if I could help. They said I could, and gave me a pile of papers to sort and put in folders. They had 100′s of pages with all kinds of little exercises and questions and diagrams.
I sat on the floor by the big fireplace and started organizing the leadership class workshop papers. After about ten minutes, a few more people from the leadership class wandered in and I said they should come on over and help me organize the big mess of papers on the floor.
The two leadership class teachers were trying to lay low and not say anything because they didn’t want to look like they were disorganized or behind schedule. So, I just sort of started telling everyone what to do and they all jumped in with me and we had a blast sitting on the floor putting all the little pages together in their little folders.
Maybe the two leadership class teachers were secretly testing us to see who the leaders were in the class by pretending that they weren’t very good leaders. Because, aren’t good leaders supposed to be organized and have all their homework done BEFORE they go to Esalen and teach a leadership class?
I recently went on the Internet and looked up Esalen and did a little research about the place. Apparently, just about anyone can teach little workshops and classes there on just about anything, from jumping around and singing, to yoga and meditation.
I found out that each teacher gets to stay there for free and also gets $75 per person who signs up for the class. I guess as long as you can get at least eight people to sign up for the class, no matter what it is, you get to stay there for free and get paid.
Maybe the two leadership class teachers just wanted to make a few bucks and hang out there at the aging hippie spa and get free meals. Esalen is kind of like a spiritual, trippy resort for rich, aging hippies who listen to the Grateful Dead, who eat politically correct rice, and pretend that they’re down with the people.

Anyway, back to the story….

As usual, I gravitated towards the pretty girls in the group and made friends right away with them. It didn’t take long, either. Just because it was a leadership class didn’t mean that we weren’t supposed to have fun and potentially have hookups with chicks, man. There were about 20 of us altogether and it was just a nice bunch of people. I don’t really remember learning anything about leadership, or Zen, or anything of importance, but I do remember that it was fun and the whole Esalen experience was nice overall.
Some of the Buddhist Leadership workshop was about sitting in a big circle with the two leadership guys in the middle. They would ask all of us random questions and we would go around the circle, one by one, and say stuff.
In a way, it was really nothing more than organized hanging out.
In another section of the workshop, the leadership guys would single out someone and do a little “one-on-one” in front of the whole group. There were little sayings, and little “wins” and little “breakthroughs” about this and that, but I really thought it was mostly entertainment and just for fun.
After a long, hard day of organized hanging out and pointing at diagrams on the wall about leadership, it was time for dinner. We all headed out to find where the dinner place was. Esalen is a physically beautiful place and it’s nice just to walk around and be by the ocean in that part of northern California.
We eventually found the building where everyone goes to have meals. It was sort of like a fancy summer camp-vibe, mess hall with artsy-fartsy people of all different types. You know, lots of granola people, vegetarians, and hippies, young and old.
It was a pretty cool place — to visit, that is. I wouldn’t want to make it a permanent lifestyle choice. That would be extremely strange on a full-time basis.
Of course, whenever I’m in a new place I start to snoop around and take notice of all the little details and check things out and make little observations. I noticed that there was a lot of politically correct food all over the place. I think there was something like eight different kinds of health food rice and many varieties of tofu and beans and salads and all sorts of healthy stuff.
It was clear that the food was making a real statement about Esalen, and that it was trying REAL hard to say that they were healthy people and mindful, conscious eaters, and food preparers. There were all kinds of vegan stuff and vegetarian stuff and just a bunch of different things to eat for all the different types of health food people there.
I wasn’t really a health food nut, but I thought it was mildly entertaining to see how hard everyone was trying to be healthy. In all fairness, the food was pretty darn good and quite mindfully prepared.
Some people say that when you prepare food, the actual thoughts you have affect the taste. Then again, maybe the actual thoughts we have doing ANYTHING might have an effect on the outcome of the thing we’re doing, above and beyond the actual thing we’re doing.
Like, if you’re fishing and think scary, mean fish thoughts maybe the fish won’t cooperate as much and let you kill them for fun or eat them. Or, perhaps I’m over thinking the actual process of thinking and maybe it doesn’t really make as much difference as I think. Or, maybe it does for some things, and not for others, and probably there’s a happy medium in the middle, like most things.
I did notice that way off in the back of the big dining room there was a little teeny-weeny sign that said “Coffee and Cigarettes” so I immediately had to check out that area, just to see how the health food people would present that part of the show.
They had a very bustling, thriving little robust business going on with the organic coffee and trendy little fancy cappuccino drinks (all very mindfully prepared with only the finest, 100% certified organic and range-free coffee beans, etc.). You could get beer and wine and hard alcohol drinks if you wanted, as well.
Then, I noticed they had all kinds of little candy bars that said “Save the Rhino’s” on the back of the wrapper, and that a certain percent of the proceeds would go to saving specific endangered species, etc.
I wonder how many rhinos got saved by the candy eating health food people? I guess I’ll never know for sure if any rhinos ever got saved, or if it could be proved that the money really went to saving any of them. Maybe I’m just being skeptical or jaded or something, but maybe, just maybe, the Esalen people are trying a little too hard to be politically correct about too many things. But hey, maybe the rhinos needed to be saved by the Esalen candy eaters, and I might just be wrong about the whole thing.
I met all kinds of cool people and had a lot of amazing conversations with all sorts of types. There was no shortage of interesting characters floating around that joint.
After dinner, all the little cliques formed and it didn’t take long for certain people to gravitate towards certain others. It’s funny how in social situations it really just comes down to basic, human behaviors, like the pretty girls wanting to be around the big guys, or the rich guys, or whatever.

Nothing has probably changed since caveman times, other than little details, like hairstyles and stuff. People are pretty much people wherever you go and it doesn’t matter what color, or race, or size, or where in the world you’re from. We all just want to have a good time and be well liked and not get into too much trouble while we’re at it.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but, in general, this is what I have noticed in my life.
After dinner, and whatever politically correct desserts they were serving, everyone all seemed to know what the next thing was to do. I had NO idea, so I just sort of tagged along.
Everyone except me knew about going to the outdoor hot springs down by the edge of the cliff near the ocean. That sounded like fun. How cool was that, to have outdoor natural hot springs bubbling up from the ground, outside, right by the edge of a big cliff near the ocean?
I just cruised along with everyone else from my leadership workshop and headed off for the hot springs. I did notice, however, that it seemed like everyone was pretty psyched to go and that they all looked like they knew how much fun it was going to be, and I just sort of sensed that it was an extra special fun place.
We all trotted off down a dimly lit, outdoor path, leading to the edge of the cliff where there were some cool, little, old buildings where it looked like you could get massages and stuff. I was with two or three of the prettiest women there and we were all getting along really nicely and talking about spirituality and past lives and karma and neat things like that. I just felt really lucky and happy to be hanging out with such interesting, pretty women who were on a spiritual quest like I was and that everything just seemed so special and neat all over the place.
We all headed in to the main building where there were lockers and bathrooms and stuff, and I just kinda went in and, like usual, I pretended I knew where everything was. We grabbed some towels and everyone just started taking off their clothes and headed off for the showers. There was only one room with showers and the locker room area was for both men and women.
It took me about three seconds to figure out what was going on. I instantly pulled my clothes off like I’d been there a million times before and I hopped into the shower room right next to the two prettiest girls. All of us in my workshop class were there –NAKED — acting like it was the most normal and natural thing.
No one said anything funny about it, and naturally, I pretended that I knew all about it and just went about my business and took a nice hot shower. Of course, I was standing next to the two prettiest, NAKED women from my class whom I had just met that day, and my teachers were there standing next to their favorite, NAKED women and it all just sort of seemed to unfold, naturally, without anyone saying anything about the fact that we were all NAKED and complete strangers in the middle of a shower room! NAKED!
After we all took our quick little showers, we headed off to the hot springs. I saw a little sign by the door to the outside area where the hot springs were that said in small letters, “Clothing Optional.”
I guess if you wore a bathing suit at a nudist colony in an outdoor hot spring you might kinda look like a nerd or a square. I thought it was mildly amusing that they had a sign saying it was optional to wear clothes or not, like anyone ever, in the history of Esalen, wore a bathing suit there. It turns out that Esalen is internationally known for its naked hot springs area and that’s the sort of not-talked-about thing that everyone seems to know about, except me – at the time, that is.
I caught on pretty quick though, and I didn’t even flinch. I suppose I’m not all that unique, in a way. I guess just about any red-blooded guy who was hanging out with a bunch of pretty girls at a weekend workshop in a beautiful, luxurious place by the ocean would probably have reacted the same way once he realized all the girls were getting naked, right in front of everyone.
Maybe it should be like that everywhere, or maybe not. I guess if it were like that everywhere, then it wouldn’t be as special when it did happen. I suppose, in life, we need to have these contrasts; otherwise we wouldn’t want to risk having the world be a Utopia because that would be too boring for the war people.

There are the “make-love-not-war” people and there are the “think tank” guys from Halliburton and Raytheon who love making 11 trillion dollars for random acts of violence against people who didn’t do anything.
I guess the only way to stop wars would be to find out ways to make a bigger profit from peace. It’s probably been that way since caveman times and just the weapons, hairstyles, and fake reasons for war have changed.

The hot springs were amazing. There were about five of them all lined up by the edge of a big cliff above the ocean. Steam was rising from them and all kinds of funny mineral smells were oozing up as well. Once you got used to it, which didn’t take long, it all just kind of worked.
And, being naked with a bunch of strangers in a natural hot spring, under the stars in the dark moonlight by the sea, is pretty darn fun. There wasn’t any hanky-panky going on at all; it was just a nice, fun way to hang out and relax.
I ended up sitting next to a woman who was about ten years older than I was, and she was really cool. She said that she was Ted Turner’s right-hand woman and a big-time executive for that TV network. She and I got along really well and as we talked and learned about one another, one thing led to another until a rather funny thing happened. I told her that I was a musician and she said she knew a lot of musicians in L.A. and then I told her that I had gone to Berklee in Boston and then she started mentioning names and I did, too, and then we found out that we both knew someone in common.
I knew this kid back at school named Dan and he was a bass player and she knew him as well, because she was his Dad’s girlfriend for years! I was sitting naked, in a hot spring next to my friend’s step mom! It was a small-world moment and she was really cool; so whatever, we were just friends anyways and nothing more happened.
The next morning I called my brother, Matthew, (the one who paid for the workshop) and told him I was having a blast. He said that he knew some people who were working there for a few months in exchange for being able to live there and do workshops and yoga and hang out in the naked hot springs. I guess, in a way, that’s not a bad way to live. He told me who they were and what they looked like and how to find them and to say hello from Matthew. So, I thanked him again and then headed off for breakfast.
I had now been in that place for a good 12 hours and pretty much knew where everything was; where all the bathrooms were, where the dining room was, where the massage area was, where the hot springs were etc.
I was an old pro and feeling all confident and secure about my surroundings.
I walked into the dining room all by myself to get in line for breakfast. The food was amazing, as always, and there was an abundance of things to try. Everything was all healthy and good for you and I was really getting into the vibe of the place.
Of course, for fun, I always like to analyze places and try to find things wrong or what I consider to be funny, which isn’t necessarily what others might think of as funny. This place was no exception. I noticed that there were a lot of similar types of people trying really hard to be individuals. A lot of the younger people had longer hair, and played hacky sack and looked like they were all Grateful Dead heads. They all had really expensive, designer hiking boots, and the same brand of knapsacks, and I just kept noticing more and more how exactly the same they all looked and acted, even though the premise was that they were supposed to be individual people.
Same thing with the older people; they all had their little Grateful Dead t-shirts, and tie-dyed outfits and expensive shoes and what not — probably the parents of those rich, hippie kids.
I bet the guys who drive old Volkswagen vans with the peace signs really drive new BMW’s and Cadillac’s back home. They just keep their old vans around as props so when they go to Esalen they look like they’re still part of the ’60′s and keeping the dream alive.
I was a small boy during the ’60′s and missed out on seeing the Beatles, Hendrix, The Doors and Janis Joplin. However, three out of those four bands have musicians, who have all died from drug or alcohol related over doses. It seems to me that dying from self indulgent abuse of drugs and alcohol isn’t very hip, cool or about peace and love.
The music those people made was wonderful, but I try to separate the difference between blanket statements that the ’60′s were all about peace and love when the fact is, a lot of people tragically committed suicide because they were lonely and confused.
I remember reading an article in Rolling Stone magazine where Mick Jagger was asked if he could sum up the ’60′s in one sentence. He said the entire peace and love movement was about wide ties and bellbottoms.

I think Esalen got it right. Peace and love works best when everyone’s NAKED.