Name: claude
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

There were a number of people I got to know in Venice. The public portal to the scene was the Venice West Cafe, run at that time by John Haag and his wife Anna. Dawson McGouch (not sure that's how he spelled it) made the coffee and sandwiches. VWC was seedily authentic, books, chess, poets, dim lighting. It was there I fell under the wing of Vaughn Marlowe, who said he used to run the bookstore next door, and was then paid staff at KPFK as News Director, IIRC. He invited me to volunteer there and there I was. I worked for a while with Leonard Brown, who, I was told, had produced, or created or something that seminal tv show "77 Sunset Strip", which was what passed for hollywood cutting edge hip at the time. The Hipster as folk Hero and The Hipster Detective. His girlfriend was Clair Brush. I remember being at their house one time for dinner and getting more stoned on reefer than I had ever thought possible. Yes, Venice was def where I caught reefer madness. Leonard brought me into this radio documentary called "Five Nights in the Ghetto" he was producing for Pacifica, which involved five sequential shows of interviews, man-on-the-streets, and grim warnings of dire consequences from the Watts and South Central communities, aired during the spring before the Watts Riots. THAT was an eye-opener for this young sprite, walking around the 'hoods, trying to get people to talk to a scared long-haired white kid on tape about what it was like down there. Freep had also just done some work on publiscising the Watts Towers, trying to save them, so I had already been down there. Of course, when the riots came, I had to go back, and I wound up driving Yorum Getzler's white VW beetle with him, cameras aready, following a stream of cop cars down the Harbor Fwy and getting off right into the middle of a street confrontation just off Alameda Blvd. Cops at one end of the block and a mob on the other. The mob threw rocks at us and the cops threw us on the ground, not impressed with my home-made LAFP Pree Pass. They let us go right away, they were very paranoid, to quote St Dylan.

What really stood out then was these folks, who were not young'ns, had all recently been throught the Hollywood Blacklist scandal and the McCarthy Committee hearings and this was all fresh in their minds. These were old line lefties, and all that New Left ferment was just a glimmer on the horizon at that point. Goldwater had just been soundly chased back to his cave, and LBJ was serving up the Great Society.

Jeez that's all I can do right now...

Name: dosed
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

Claude, wasnt that Augustus Stanislaus Owsley.

Name: claude
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

Nic: I plan to be in NM for the duration, so y'all come. H'lane is in residence somewhere in NoCal these days; Clane is in touch with her. I have some great photos of H up at the Land a few yers ago. Her first visit there in over twenty years. She is a sight to behold. I told her there is a diorama awaiting her in the Smithsonian, depicting the last unreconstructed hippie.

Name: Hammond
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003
 

Comments

claude - gone on and on with flashes. Do you know Tom and Vickey Kelly? The owned The Omnibus and the Bizzar Bazzar - now living here in Oregon. I have to go take a nap now to stop thinking about crazy mad wonderful LA people! I am writing about Morocco at the moment - and dealing with another set of crazy, mad and (not so) wonderful people.

Ah the Echos of our minds - We (all of us here) are a veritable Think Tank of Thinkdom. bye for now :-)

Name: OOOOps.....
EmailAddress: writenow@spiritone.com
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

the address -

Name: Hammond
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

claude - Now I remember "the question" - I asked if you knew Jean-Marc Vasseur from those daze. Re-reading your note I see the Jim (Roger) Mcguin girlfriend mention - so perhaps you did know him. He lives in France now - but then - as now he is one of McGuin's closest frieinds. During the time frame you mention below - Jean-Marc was living in Hollywood area. You also mentioned the Venice West set - Do you know Philomene Long and/or the late John Thomas? Philomene and I are in close contact if you do - (lord, the number of LA (in that small window of time we are speaking of) folks that you and I might have in common is rather unimaginable) - Did you also hang out at Bito Lido's, The Chetah and the Lighthouse? Were you at the Easter Love In in Griffith Park? Did you get a dose of the crabs (like the rest of us!) from the waitress at The London Fog?.... I must stop or I will go on forever....... LA/Hollywood in this time was the most incredible scene - as you say, of loose elements that just melded together to have this uniquely LA sorta Pandora's Party - and the we were gone......

Name: Hammond
EmailAddress: writenow@spiritone.com
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

claude - !!!!! Yes, yes and yes! You and I undoubtedly crossed paths during this time. I may have even come by your house in Echo Park! I was at the 5th Estate nearly every Fri-Sun in and out over and above.... Art was in the basement (write to me at the address above and I will hook you up. [Can't leave Art's address here] He sent me a picture (which I have lost) of him dressed like Robin Hood handing out the first Freep issues at the Faire front entrance. I can also connect you (if you need it) to Delores Mitchell (wife and co-founder of the 5th Estate with Al - who is very ill) I wanted to include a shot of the place in my book - yet no one had a photo (Kunkin included - and he sent out a search missive to all the old photographers for the Freep et al) Delores had to comb her family photo albums to find the rather pitiful photograph of the front of the Estate which is in my book - which may be the only existing photo of this important, utterly wonderful hang-out that is was. - I too hung out at Fred C. Dobbs - This is where met up with the likes of Vito Paleukas, Bunk Gardner of the Mothers and the Fraternity of Man ensemble...Wanted to include a photo of this in my book as well but the only shot Î could find was a modern day photo of the building it was in - now a dentist's office I think.

Re: the tests - I think we were there together as well. Sorry to keep dropping my book in here but if you haven't read it here is the vignette on about the Acid Test

http://www.thefarm.org/museum/hammondlsd.html

Sound familiar? They had the tub there as well.

As with Nic - you and I need to have a good ole fashion sit down... I can't remember the question

Oh, here's one. Did you know Bernardo?

Name: Nik
EmailAddress:
Date: 20 Nov 2003

Comments

very familiar story. I believe you and H'lane and I met at Olema or Treat St...somewhere, I have a picture of you both somewhere in my head...I'm excited to think one day we can all meet in the middle somewhere...Maybe NM?

Name: claude
EmailAddress:
Date: 19 Nov 2003

Comments

Hammond, and Nicole.

I was living in Echo Park for a while in the spring of 1965, about 5-6 blocks up EP Blvd from Sunset (Pioneer Market and Pioneer Take-Out on the corner, always bustling.) Lived in warren of rooms and outbuilding some anglo guy named Bill something had. He lived there with his whole family, married to a Hispnic lady and they had some young lids, Bunch of us lived there for a while. This was while I was working at the Freep, yup, in the basement of the Fifth Estate. Al somebody ran the Fifth as an under-age nightclub/coffeehouse and it was always packed with kids. I walked in the door with the lead article for issue #4, an interview with Mario Savio, fresh down from Berkeley. I interviewed Mario for KPFK News, where I had been helping out as a newsroom volunteer. I was 19. Anyway, I transcribed the interview and trundled it down to Art Kunkin, and the next thing I knew, I was working for the Freep as well. Art was staying (illegally) down in the basement, and there were always a bunch of people coming in for one thing or another. A very happening place for a 19 yo to get to hang out in. I did a little every thing, a bit of reportage, typesetting on such (now) antique dinosaurs as a VariTyper and a paper tape controlled justifying typewriter called (it's coming back to me) a Justo-writer, which gave the paper that pro look of the columns equal width. This was a big deal for Art to get. I also set a lot of type for the ads, learned all about paste up. Then Art would drag the whole pile of camer ready copy down to a printer in Long Beach, and then drag all the printed bundles of Freeps back uptown to distribute, all in the old pickup camper (was it a dodge) that ran on five cylinders. On mornings when cash subscriptions came in in the mail, we would get to go eat breakfast just down the street. I should def talk with Art, if he writing a history.

You guys were there then, let me ask you about something I observed back then, see if you agree. It seemed to me that one of the seminal events in the early coming together of the way-spread-out and largely unaware of each other freak community scattered through the ghettos and canyons and hills of the LA metroplex, was the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, a moment when all these folks who had come to try that one on got to see how many other folks there were like them. I remember walking around at the first one, out in the Malibu hills somewhere, the Paramount Ranch, and sharing this utter euphoria over feeling surrounded by other freaks. Something clicked there, I think, for a lot of people, a realisation of how many freaks there were and the power of coming together. ^Those were a couple of very densly packed years for me in LA. The remnants of the Venice West scene, the Strip when the first long hairs started hanging out, long before it degenerated to riots and stuff. I remember the Artists' Protest Tower that a DiSuervo ,perhaps it was Mark, or Tony, erected on a vacant lot bwtween Ciros and Whiskey. A tensile structure of rods and cable and bright cloth. And right up the street, for a magical moment of a few months, The Cafe Fred C. Dobbs, (I don't got to show you no stinkin' badges) a semi tragic happening of a little hole in the wall on the north side of the strip. I t was the dream of Bonnie and Ivars, who were sweetly in love and putting this cafe together. Just before the pplace opened, Bonnie and Ivars went down to TJ to get some stuff for the place, and Ivars was killed in a car wreck. Bonnie came back alone and bravely went ahead and opened the place. A bunch of us helped out. I would cook there occaisonally. I think I cooked a burger for Dylan, who made an appearance on one of the nights he sat in with the Byrds at Ciros while Tamborine Man was on the charts. I never knew why, but the place closed down after a few months, Bonnie went on to meet Hugh Romney and become part of the mythos. I can't remember how I got involved with those folks, what the connection was, but I got to be a Byrds groupie for a while, which meant that I got to do them favors, like drive Jim McGuin's girlfriend back to Palos Verdes, or was it David Crosby's girl friend?

Yeah, acid. That was all mixed up in the time as well. All these folks seeing stuff, peeking thru those doors of perception. When I first ran into it, it was still legal. You could go down to Mexico and get the pure Sandoz, caame in a little glass tube about as thick as a pencil, maybe inch and a half long (you could easily stick it up yr ass if needed), had 250 hits in it. Sugar cubes. Anyway, so by the time the Pranksters rolled the bus down to LA to bring us the word, I was right there for it. Part of the publicity machine. The first one was for the liberals and academics, at that wonderful oniondome church up in Northridge, out in the Valley, Unitarian, I think. They set up and did the whole deal, kool-aid and all, but minus the lectricity. The next weekend they pulled out all the stops down on Alameda. Legend has always had it that Paul Foster (RIP) dropped a decimal point in dosing the kool-aid that night, so everybody got a 10x dose. IIRC, H'lane got this tidbit of info from him when she and I and Clane stayed at the Hog Farm up in Tujunga for a couple of weeks in the summer of 1967. Eileen will remember when we all came back from that LA trip and wound up crashing at the Pine Street house for too long, because the CommCo had imploded while we were gone.

I had brought a young Freep volunteer, a nice Jewish valley high-school girl who was walking a bit on the wild side. I can't remember her name. I invited her in the spirit of adventureand she was up for it. I don't think she had done any dope before. I am driving this stripped down, bare metal 1954 Jaguar XK 140M with no top and problems, but tamed enuf to drive around. One of the great beasts of the road, and I had raced all the way to Deadman's Curve in it. Anyway, we get there and it's funky and not too crowded. Some people people I know are there. Doc Stanley. Clair Brush. Lot of milling about, not an inch of plush in that old warehouse. The multi media is swirling all around. They bring out the garbage cans of Kool-aid and I have a couple and Bring one to my date. The Dead start playing and we go ssit againt the back wall with a bunch of people. Beyond that, it starts to get all hazy. I distinctly remember a moment, after the band took a break, getting fixated on this distant light, which I got up a checked out, which turned out to be the glow of the Dead's big McIntosh amps I found out as I stumbled through the mikes and stuff. There was, of course, the unforgetable "Who cares?" cries of despair. I had thought at the time it was Clair Brush calling out. but I never found out. It went on forever and as the dawn came, the cops did indeed come around, some guy in a suit did hand out Kool cigarettes,and I remember telling myself I was supposed to be scared. Somehow I found the girl, who had survived intact, somehow, and seemed to be fine, although she thought she ought to get home. The Jag, of course, had a dead battery, but there there were plenty of people reeling about in the street and they were willing to push us, as the cops cheered us on, and off we motored, somehow safely getting her home. I have never seen her since, but I would love to hear what her take on all that was..

I left the Freep in late 1966, bound for San Fran with an angry ex-husband on our heels, the Jag traded for a pickup to haul us up, H'lane's daughter Modi (Modi is now an indy filmaker in LA and recently a mom herself.) and H'lane pregnant with Clane.

Well, jeez, I didn't mean to talk yr ear off. What was it you were asking?