Small World

A friend of ours here in Florence, Oregon, Hal Weiner, each year is instrumental in producing the Winter Folk Festival in January. The thrust of the event is to put on concerts at the Florence Events Center for the areas school children and expose them to folk music. The auditorium seats 457 for the main concerts and the flat floor is used all weekend for vendors and a more-or-less continuous concert of folk talent from the region. This has turned into a great event and we have been involved by donating the use of the big beach house vacation rental to house the headline group. Of course there is an adult concert on Saturday night which is sold out each year. This year Tom Paxton is numero uno, and Barry McGuire (Eve of Destruction) and John York (former member of the Birds) are numero dos. They will all be staying at our house and for this we get to enjoy some good music and have some satisfaction that we helped bring folk music to the kids here.

Hal Weiner, for a time, was a member of the Goldcoast Singers who opened for Bud & Travis several times in L.A. and San Francisco. It’s a small world. I ran into Hal yesterday as we were both buying a belt at the local Fred Meyer store (not many options here) and spoke to him about the upcoming concert and he reminisced for a time about those days of being a broke student in L.A. and trying to make a few extra dollars by playing music. And he reminded me that the founding members of the Goldcoast Singers wrote and performed the irreverent song Plastic Jesus. The song was not meant to antagonize those of faith, but to point out the hypocrisy of selling trinkets in the name of God. There are many other versions of this song and a little controversy over its origin, but I believe that these are the original lyrics.

Plastic Jesus
By the Goldcoast Singers, 1962
Ed Rush, and George Cromarty

I don't care if it rains or freezes

's long as I've got my Plastic Jesus

Glued to the dashboard of my car.

You can buy Him phosphorescent

Glows in the dark, He's Pink and Pleasant,

Take Him with you when you're traveling far.

You can buy a Sweet Madonna

Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a

Pedestal of abalone shell.

Goin' ninety, I'm not wary

'Cause I've got my Virgin Mary,

Guaranteeing I won't go to Hell.

(All together now!)

I don't care if it rains or freezes
's long as I've got my Plastic Jesus
Glued to the dashboard of my car