[Dixielandjazz] Bird and Camarillo State Hospital

[Burt Wilson]

To set the record straight, it was not "conservative politicians and liberal
advocates of self-determination" which closed Camarillo, it was Ronnie Reagan
who put all the mentally ill in California on the streets, doping them up to
make them "safe" and making life hell for them. This is not an achievement he
or any other conservative can be proud of. The buck stopped with Ronnie and he
OK'd it all.
Terrible decision.

Burt Wilson


On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 16:07:03 -0500 Stephen Barbone
<barbonestreet@earthlink.net> wrote:

> NOT OKOM-LONG POST-DELETE IF YOU ARE NOT A BIRD
> WATCHER.
> 
> Listmates:
> 
> Bill Haesler is right, I posted the question
> about whether Bird was in
> jail or not, for several reasons. One of which
> was to disprove the
> theory that he was called Yardbird because of
> his "jail' time. Logical
> as that may sound, it is pure bunk. Parker was
> never convicted of
> anything as far as I know and did not serve any
> jail time other than a
> short stay with the police in California, long
> after he was "nick" named
> Bird. The following is from reliable sources,
> too varied to list.
> 
> He had a mental breakdown after recording in
> July 1946. For those
> interested in his early work, that record is a
> haunting classic. Before
> the record date he had been ingesting bennies
> for several days. He was
> really wired at the session (several days in a
> row of bennies will do
> that to you) and a young doctor at the session,
> who knew of his heroin
> addiction, thought he was going through
> withdrawal and wrongly gave him
> a stimulant which really lit him up. He went
> back to his hotel
> 
> That evening he fell asleep in his hotel room
> with a lit cigarette in
> his hand and set the room on fire. He woke,
> panicked and ran into the
> lobby with no pants on. The cops came took him
> away, kept him in
> detention a day or two and a judge committed
> him to Camarillo because at
> the time Bird was pretty much incoherent. Yes,
> the breakdown was
> probably induced by drugs and/or drug
> withdrawal. When given a shot of
> morphine at the hospital he immediately became
> rational. (morphine and
> heroin are almost identical drugs)
> 
> Now, for Camarillo State Hospital, here is some
> of its' history via
> google. Once again Bill Haesler is correct in
> his assessment of what
> Camarillo was: (It was not a jail)
> 
> "Back in 1936, the state built the Camarillo
> hospital in what was then a
> rural area separated from the nearest towns.
> Foothills, wide grassy
> areas and rock formations isolated the
> facility, whose
> Spanish-style buildings included a labyrinth of
> rooms, hallways,
> stairwells, courtyards, patios and a bell
> tower.
> 
> The Camarillo hospital earned a certain amount
> of fame in 1947 when
> famous jazz musician Charlie Parker was
> committed there for a
> seven-month stay after he suffered a nervous
> breakdown. After his stay,
> Parker wrote "Relaxin' at Camarillo."
> 
> The Eagles' 1976 hit "Hotel California" -- with
> the famed lyrics, "You
> can check out any time you like, but you can
> never leave" -- is thought
> by some to have been inspired by the Camarillo
> hospital.
> 
> The 1950s were defining years for the hospital.
> New ideas of"modern"
> psychiatry came into use in Camarillo. More
> drugs and behavior
> modification techniques were used to control
> the behavior of mentally
> ill patients, who had previously often been
> placed in restraints or
> underwent shock treatment.
> 
> The Receiving and Treatment Center was
> completed in 1952, the first of
> its size to be built in California. Also in the
> 1950s, children were
> separated from the adults in one of the first
> children's units in state
> institutions, and the hospital became known for
> its dynamic treatment of
> autistic youths, This was the era to treat
> patients actively. It was a
> decade of great change," she said.
> 
> In its heyday in the 1950s, more than 7,000
> people lived at the
> Camarillo hospital. It was a city within a
> city. In 1967, the hospital
> added developmentally disabled patients to its
> wards. Staff members
> taught them skills, helped them work in the
> vocation department and
> treated them like family, she said.
> 
> Despite the successes at Camarillo, the cost to
> taxpayers and the
> government of housing and treating people in
> large facilities was
> skyrocketing. Fiscally conservative politicians
> and liberal advocates of
> self-determination sought other solutions, such
> as having patients
> transferred to group homes.
> 
> The Camarillo hospital officially closed June
> 30, 1997. To the few
> employees who remained, the closure felt like
> the death of a close
> relative. Many of the hospital's former
> employees, found other state
> jobs, but 238 were laid off. More than 100
> retired. Many of the patients
> were moved to other institutions in the
> Southland.
> 
> Now the old hospital will be devoted to
> teaching people for the future,
> but its past also provided powerful lessons to
> former employees, who
> gained an education in humanity working with
> society's less fortunate
> and those who could not care for themselves."
> 
> When he got out of Camarillo in 1947 he was a
> like a new man. 50 pounds
> heavier, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Played
> wonderfully, for about two
> years, before his drug dependence returned and
> little by little his fate
> was sealed.
> 
> Any more interest? Write me off line and I will
> provide Howard McGhee's
> (bop trumpet on the record date) version of
> just how wired Bird was, and
> the session background. It is an extraordinary
> story.
> 
> I also agree that drugs of choice, from booze
> to bennies and worse, in
> no way affect the contributions of artists, or
> the art except that most
> seem to perform better when sober. However they
> are an integral part of
> Jazz History and should be understood in that
> context, not covered up.
> Especially among those of us on the list who
> are vitally interested in
> "Jazz" as either jazz musos or fans.
> 
> About Parker? He was unable to break the grip
> of heroin. He frequently
> counseled those around him not to follow his
> example, citing its evils.
> However, many followed thinking that it was the
> stimulants that made him
> so great. (Deja Vu, Timothy Leary?) Totally
> wrong, it was the practice
> and his highly focused love for the music. He
> died young because of his
> inability to get clean.
> 
> I speak as one who knew him and many of his NYC
> circle of friends from
> 1949 till his death in 1955. He was to us a
> very special human being. He
> was also very cognizant of the entire spectrum
> of jazz music, as shown
> by his frequent quotes of "trad" players, e.g.
> the quote of Picou's High
> Society on "KoKo" (Cherokee) and his quote of
> Louis Armstrong's "West
> End Blues" on  "Visa".  How lucky I was to have
> been in the right place
> at the right time.
> 
> Sorry it's such a long post but then, I warned
> you at the beginning.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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