R.I.P.: CHET HELMS IS DEAD (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

Anyone who remembers San Francisco’s hippie “summer of love” may appreciate this tribute to Chet Helms, left, who died last week. It includes Paul Krassner’s story about a news article that claimed Helms had died when he was still very much alive. “So Chet decided to produce his own combination wake and resurrection,” Krassner writes.

He hired a hearse and a coffin, and invited 200 guests to the event. … The hearse was driven to the Gold Coast Restaurant. The coffin was rolled into the restaurant and opened. Chet just lay there. On his chest were flowers and a cell phone. All of a sudden, the phone rang. He rose to answer it, then walked through the crowd of photographers shooting him and mourners toasting him. Amen.

I never met Chet Helms, but I well recall the Human Be-In he helped organize in Golden Gate Park way back in 1967, and listening to Janis Joplin, whom he launched in 1966 with Big Brother and the Holding (the band she fronted and he managed), and all the other San Francisco bands he presented at the Avalon and the Fillmore in its early days (Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service among them). If you were there, there’s no way you wouldn’t remember those days.