MATT BARRETT’S TALES FROM THE ROCK N ROLL CRYPT: Episode 10
KARPOUZI
I received a Facebook message one day.
“Hello Mr Barrett. My name is Yannis and I am a journalist in Greece. I am working on a book about the Greek youth and its resistance to the military dictatorship of 1967 and I would like to interview you.”
No doubt it’s about the article on the Junta in my History of Greece, I thought. I’m now recognized as an historical commentator and authority instead of some guy who used to be in a band. Cool.
“How can I help you Yannis?”
He answered. “I wanted to ask you about karpouzi.”
Translation: καρπούζι = watermelon
Immediate reaction: oh no!
“Yes. Karpouzi and kotopoulo systems for ingesting of narcotics”.
Translation: κοτόπουλο = chicken
Secondary reaction: rolling of my eyes so far up into my head as to be painful.
“I’m sorry Yannis. I don’t think this is a very good idea.”
“ I don’t have to use your name. I understand that this was a long time ago and maybe you don’t want people to know that you took drugs.” He replied.
“No that is not a problem. I am more concerned about the integrity of your work.”
He answered. “LOL. Greece has changed very much since those days. We are a democracy now and people can talk and write freely about illegal drugs without fear of imprisonment. We just can’t use them.”
“No. It’s not that either. You shouldn’t write about it because it’s not true.” I told him.
“Not true? I don’t understand...”
Perhaps at this point I should tell you that Yannis’ source was not my History of Greece. It was the liner notes I wrote for THE GREAT LOST CC BLUESKING ALBUM which we recorded in 1970, where I describe in detail the recording and meaning of each song. Including a song called Karpouzi.
“Karpoozi: This song features the vocals of George the Mouse and the sax playing of Chuck the Rat and is an exploration of an American Indian rhythm that evolves into a heavy metal Black Sabbath like finale. Karpoozi means watermelon in Greek and the band often used their multi lingual talents to get across ideas that the heavy censorship in those days might frown upon. As many in the Greek drug community knew a karpoozi was a hash pipe that was made from a watermelon. During the dictatorship young people could be stopped on the street and searched and the small home-made hash pipes could get you as much as 10 years in prison. But the young people walking around Athens carrying watermelons were above suspicion, at least until the practice got out of control and possession of watermelons became an invitation for a strip search. But by then most of the serious users had graduated to the chicken-pipes to avoid detection. Equally ingenious these pipes were whole chickens from the market, the hashish was placed in the beak which was heated with a blow-torch until white hot and the smoke sucked through the chicken and out the anus, giving it a soothing Campbell's Chicken Soup flavor which was popular with the Greek-Americans. But back to the song. Amazing slide by Matt. Keep in mind that this is long before Duane Allman made it fashionable to play slide guitar in a rock band.” From The Great Lost CC BLUESKING album.
I explained to Yannis that it was a joke. There were no young people carrying around watermelons to get high with or sucking hashish smoke out of the anus of a chicken during the junta, or ever. He took it well. I suppose he realized that being able to remove this information from his book made the efforts of the Greek youth opposing the junta a little less ridiculous. At least I hope he did. Maybe he thought I was just trying to hide my own involvement. I could have said it was all true and let him publish his book. How often does a band get to say they changed history?