THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

Running With Pencils

2009-04-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

It must have started with crayons. Crayola, usually the small box, but sometimes the large economy size. The crayons smelled good, but not as good as PlayDoh. Melting crayons smelled good too.

Pencils were okay, kind of boring, and when sharpened, allegedly dangerous. Be careful with that, you could put your eye out! The pencils danced between blue lines on faded gray-speckled notebook paper, letters into words into sentences into paragraphs, the user marveling that letters formed words which formed language, and that the human brain could process such things.

Pens were ballpoint or felt-tip or fountain type, multi-coloured inks flowing and exploding between journal covers in stream-of-consciousness rant. The pens illustrated the rant with peace symbols and palm trees.

Typewriters were heavy and metal and evil, causing young brains and fingers to produce clatter and noise and mind-deadening language - I knew this. I had friends who typed.

Word processors were somehow not as bad as typewriters, though either could take away the magic and rhythm of the organic flowing pen - typing somehow being out of tune with channeling.

Years ago I inked my name and drew peace symbols onto my denim-covered cardboard school binder. Dear history instructor Becker, if you are not dead and are reading this, please return my confiscated journal from nineteen-seventy. I need the notes.

Days of Art Lite

2009-03-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

The poster art had large, pinched block letters and swirled backgrounds, being psychedelia with social message. I sold a few in dark alleyways. "Pssst! Ya wanna buy War Is Not Healthy For Children And Other Living Things? Comes with a free 'Lude . . ."

It was self-taught Art Lite.

In all seriousness, I did sell original poster art in the early seventies. My art studio was a converted dining room. The antique table provided a large workspace. The room had a gothic ambiance of family antiques that had seen better days, that might devolve into Grey Gardens-esque chaos.

At that time who would have predicted the creation of the internet (besides a few visionary science heads)? These days I'm into writing, web design, drawing and painting - the internet being a wonderful venue in which to be seen - or more likely unseen. In the presence of my boxy workspaces, I sometimes miss the days of the antique table in the gothic room.

Enclave

2009-03-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

I’d just left home for the first time. We'd had a big blowup and I’d impulsively hit the road, unknowingly sharing it with serial killers that would infamously be remembered by three names. I likely accepted rides from a few and freaked them out.

I ended up in a capital city, a university town. Snave St. was a legendary hip enclave. It consisted of about six blocks, south of the capitol building. It was an unpaved dead-end street consisting of about fifteen two-story millhouses which had been converted into duplexes. The rooms were square and had hardwood floors and gas heaters. The decorative motif was sleeping bags, old sagging couches, prone bodies, and large industrial cable spools as tables. Some renters actually paid utilities and had heat.

Local and inter-state drug dealers - and narcs - provided a dramatic backdrop and constant turnover in population. A few redneck neighbors harassed us and our African-American friends. We drove the neighbors crazy for the fun of it.

The houses were packed to the max. I started out at Level One: in an extremely crowded crash pad. I eventually moved in with Minette and Rich whose duplex had six occupants.

Rich and Minette were a great couple, probably in their early thirties at the time. He worked at the state mental hospital as a trade-off for his conscientious objector status. Minette determinedly worked a series of odd jobs. They also worked for VISTA - being involved in educating people and helping them with legal issues including housing and voting rights. They were two of the most intelligent, responsible, wonderful people that I knew at the time – and they were supportive of me.

At the time I was doing drugs (“Tobacco is BAD, mmm’kay?” I can imagine South Park’s Mr. Mackey saying). I smoked unfiltered Camels and ate little, utilizing a Nicotine/Starvation Diet. Oh. I smoked pot and used hallucinogens too. And how come Quaaludes made me feel small? How come LSD made me want to give the world a Coke and keep it company? How come pharmacology is no fun anymore? I digress.

I lived between Snave St. and my childhood home for a while, until I went cross-country.

Trippin'

2009-03-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

The time was the nineteen-seventies. The place was a small town. Drug culture had insinuated itself into our little town. Stoners and slackers dealt drugs directly from their parents' homes. Parents wondered why their kids were suddenly so popular, what with friends dropping by twenty-four hours a day, for furtive visits and exchanges. Some parents eventually caught on and became pissed.

At this point, my family had two houses on adjacent lots. One had been empty. At age twelve I’d found that this was the perfect time to move in. So, here I was, at age sixteen, still there. My friends really seemed to like it, too.

My first LSD adventure started innocently enough with a visit from a friend. She was very hip and had connections in actual cities. She appeared at my front door one afternoon, a gleam in her eye and contraband in her purse. I invited her inside. She got right to the point.

"Here, I have something for you. Acid. Blotter acid."

"Oh. Well, should I take the whole thing, or just snip it in half?"

"Either way."

"Should I take it now?"

"If you want. I have to run. Enjoy!"

"Wait. How long does it take to feel the effects?"

"About an hour."

I eyed the hit of acid. As I recall, it had Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck on it. What could be the harm in this tiny piece of paper with such a sweet, familiar cartoon character on it? I put it in my mouth. I awaited the effects with major butterflies in my stomach. Instead of going out, I decided it might be best to stay home.

As the drug took effect, I stood at my front screen door and watched people walk up and down the street. The colorful visual effects began, along with a sense of euphoria. I thought that I might burst out laughing at anytime, not cool behavior for a person who happened to be alone. Then I noticed it. The people parading up and down my street knew. They probably could have seen my dilated pupils at ten yards. Yep. They knew that something was askew and were giving me significant looks, laughing and talking about me.

The day quickly progressed as I puttered around the house. It was the perfect level of stimulation: no people to deal with, no bothersome tasks to worry about. It was a perfect experience. Time flew. I probably saw it fly – clock faces and calendar pages swirling about my head, the essence of time a tornado dissipating out a window. My brain cells doing who knows what, I moved colorfully and euphorically through the day.

Later that evening I got hungry, and decided to go next door to my grandparents' house to eat. In a strange act of family togetherness, I watched The Jackie Gleason Show with my grandfather. In a sketch, Gleason was alone in a lifeboat on the ocean, pondering his fate dramatically. Oh! Wait a minute! He wasn’t in the middle of the ocean after all, but practically at the shoreline. Hysterical stuff here! I experienced a new appreciation of Jackie Gleason, and had an LSD/Jackie Gleason Epiphany.

As my grandmother offered me mystery food, she didn’t seem to notice that my pupils seemed the size of dimes. Was it my imagination, or was the food actually moving around on the plate? My grandmother's kitchen and dining nook suddenly seemed very small and garishly painted. I felt as though I was trapped in a dollhouse. I ate the food. I went back next door. I went to bed. I must have had interesting dreams that night.

Such were the highlights of my first time, my wild trip. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, eat your hearts out! In retrospect I'm glad that I stayed home. Wandering around, tripping in Small Town USA, would not have been prudent.

"Meeting" The Beatles

2009-03-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

When I was young, the Beatles came to

America

. This I know, because I saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show (unless The Ed Sullivan Show and other media were simply brilliant, elaborate hoaxing).

I saw the news clips of John, Paul, George and Ringo getting off their plane. I saw swarms of hysterical young women flocking around the Fab Four - some wearing long, straight, blonde hair with bangs, winged eyeliner, white lipstick, miniskirts and boots - in the fashion zeitgeist.

I’ll always remember the brouhaha over the Beatles' hair length. Some thought their hair was too long and could not have possibly been real. "Ah. They must be wearing wigs. Yeah. That's the ticket."

Ignoring history, society was apparently threatened by the thought of men with long hair. At my high school, there was a campaign to prevent young men from growing their hair. As explained by alleged hair authorities in assembly, the growing of male hair had different consequences than the growing of female hair. Lice and all manner of afflictions would manifest in male hair, said They. Too bad they weren’t concerned about bad haircuts instead, and focused only upon hair length (meanwhile, female students fought for the right to wear pants - only to be cursed with ugly pantsuits).

I digress.

I can’t remember the name of our first Beatles' 45 record. I think it was either She Loves You, or I Want To Hold Your Hand. I remember putting it onto our tiny surrealistic record player. Was that a real record player, or was it Barbie and Ken's? My grandfather tinkered with the volume and speed on the machine. As our record was comically played on the wrong speed, he began to mock our favorite musical group. "This is terrible! . . . how can you listen to this?”

My favorite Beatle was John Lennon. John's depth and wit appealed to me. Little did we know that he'd later be murdered by John Hinckley’s idol. Fans. Fanatics. Travis Bickle lives.

I’ll always remember when the Beatles came to

America

. It was an interesting evolution: four boys from Liverpool into a musical and social force; the growth of sixties children into . . . who knew?

Animal House

2009-03-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

The house was a linear, ‘shotgun’ style. Its setting was a wooded back lot, off the street. It had a pond. My friends Roberta and Cal lived there with their animals. Some were orphaned in the wild. Some were domestic animals. Over time, they had a bobcat, a fawn, a buzzard, snakes, a goat, and a pony. They also had geese, guinea hens and chickens.

playing chicken

To enter Roberta’s side door, one had to negotiate a flock of chickens. The rooster was territorial and violent. They kept a golf club propped by the door, so that visitors could repel this hyper bird, as it attacked (not fun, especially when stoned).

goat

Their goat, Patty, was a sweet, funny, sociable creature. She tended to get out of the fence, bop down to the mill, and wander inside. There would be a knock at Roberta’s door.

"Your goat is in the weave room again!" A mill man would say, a look of exasperation on his face. "Please come and get your goat!"

Why Patty the goat was attracted to industry was beyond me. The weave room was a loud, noisy, hot room full of big dangerous machinery that threatened to mangle workers at any time. In an interesting contrast, pretty fluffs of cotton floated lazily through the air; workers breathed cotton fibers.

fawn

From her large enclosure in back, Fawn would be released. Roberta would occasionally let Fawn into the house. Its tiny hooves clopped on the hardwood floors as it ran from one end of the house to the other. Fawn would slip and fall down, long spindly legs flying. What am I doing here? Fawn must have thought. It seems that just yesterday I was in the forest. Then I moved here. Now I am here and I fall down a lot. But I like it.

pony

I didn't see Pony very often. As a matter of fact, I don't think that I met Pony at all. I occasionally heard him. Pony stayed in the large sloped area under the front porch. The house was built upon an incline, and there was lots of space underneath, especially under the front porch and living room.

One Saturday afternoon, after Roberta had gotten off work, we sat around smoking joints. We watched nineteen-fifties’ sci-fi/horror flicks on Creature Feature. We ate and laughed a lot. Afternoon would segue into evening. We’d have visitors. The evenings would eventually become quiet.

"Whiney!" Pony suddenly said one night. "Whiney!" Bump, bump, bump. The noise came from underneath the living room, seemingly from directly underneath my chair. What the freak? Sensitive to noise and to things that went bump in the night, this was almost too much for my system, this alternate universe in which equine life seemingly materialized under one’s chair.

"Oh! That's just Pony! Don't be afraid." Roberta said. Pony was perhaps lonely, or just trying to get some sleep. Perhaps ponies whiney because that's their job. Perhaps we should have let Pony into the house. What'd be the problem with one more animal, after all?

Pony was fat and had a swayback. He couldn’t have had a more loving home. Perhaps he liked staying in the cool dark space under the long skinny house before coming out into the sunny fenced yard.

Later, Roberta and Cal would move in with her parents, and take some of the menagerie with them. The situation could cause tension in her parent’s fastidious home.

"Roberta, is that buzzard roosting in your closet?" Her mother would ask. Sometimes it was. Mostly it stayed in the upstairs bathroom.

I later had an amusing dream. I dreamt that I walked up the stairs at Roberta’s house. I turned right to go into the bathroom. I opened the door. There was a bear in the bathtub! It was big, mean and loud. I quickly slammed shut the bathroom door. Darned bears in the bathroom! I thought, irritated. Then I woke up.

Memories of New Orleans: Hotel Vagabond

2009-03-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

The inspirational spark for my short story Bodies of Water was a place: New Orleans. The characters later swam in my head and played on paper, changing over time. Protagonist Erica morphed from a private investigator into a homicide detective. Over time I was writing in my head, before I became so bold as to put my words on paper and expect people to read them.

In reality, I’d rolled into New Orleans’ French Quarter during a nineteen-seventies winter, finding a cheap hotel at Chartres and Dumaine, a couple of blocks from Jackson Square. Winter chill, wind and humidity was easier for me than those hellish, humid summers. The early spring would bustle with colorful characters and Tourist Hell as we watched from a sagging wrought iron balcony.

It felt surreal when I saw Tennessee Williams on the street — dapper in his lightly-coloured cotton suit, Panama hat, and brown wingtips (the extreme humidity could induce Williamsesque ‘spells’ – I imagined dialog: “I’m feeling a bit faintish, could you fetch me chilled refreshment?” )

The hotel entryway led directly up a dark flight of stairs which took a sharp left turn. There was the check-in desk (with its overweight, sexually-harassing proprietor), which preceded a maze of wide, dark hallways. At the back of the hotel was a large communal kitchen where scavengers hung out. It was big and bare, with only the basic necessities. It was a good idea to label your foodstuffs or lock them up, due to the bands of roving residents suffering from the munchies, or genuine starvation, or both.

Large cast iron skillets sat on the ancient stove. Cast iron skillets: I always found them to be interesting: organic, funky, homey, decorative, and could be handily used as a weapon (see the film Eating Raoul). Cooking in a cast iron skillet could be exciting, as cast iron gets very hot. How does one time the cooking process? Meat could be black on the outside and pink in the middle. Can you say ‘trichinosis’? The Fried Breaded Stuffed Pork Chop Incident lingers in my mind. The huge pork chop stuffed, egg-washed, dredged in flour and bread crumbs, I managed to lift it, and ease it into sizzling skillet. The result was blackened on the outside and devoured by the kitchen lizards.

To the right of the kitchen was a hallway which led to many small, funky rooms. The rooms had old, leftover mix-and-match furniture. Some had fireplaces. My room was on the second floor, facing Dumaine St. It had french doors that led to a balcony. There were bathrooms down the cavernous hall. The bathroom near my room had a huge claw-foot tub; it paid to bring Comet or Ajax. Its large, bare window faced a small, neglected courtyard.

I met lots of people here: not only at the bathroom or in the kitchen, but throughout the establishment. Appearing spaced-out, many milled about near the check-in desk and sat on the stairs. I made a few friendships; some were cemented by impromptu cross-country road trips. From New Orleans to Montana to Oregon to California to New York I went, growing and shedding new friends, like snakeskin. But the Quarter was special.

In May 2005 I completed the short story Bodies of Water. I had fun with my characters Erica, Rita, Nick and others. As I wrote the story, sinking cities of New Orleans and Venice played in my head — subsiding and eroding, moisture permeating and destroying. Nature can no doubt be brutal; the Katrina debacle is beyond comprehension.

Fruit, Fire & Everything

2009-03-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

As I rode the country highway on that brisk winter day in 1974, I couldn't help but notice our speed, which was about 20 mph.

"You know, it's just as dangerous to drive too slowly, as too fast."

"Did you say something?"

The car was a used one, a 1969 tan Ford Fairlane with a large red star stenciled on the driver side door. Several windows were missing. Blankets covered these gaping holes and flapped in the wind. We were beginning to feel a little conspicuous. The situation had started earlier in the day when we'd smoked a joint. We were on an adventure to someplace and in the process could probably have been considered a public menace.

Still handling the road with great caution and precision, my friend continued to drive. We stopped at a store advertising Gas, Groceries, Liquor & Ammo. We needed only food.

I searched for money by dumping the contents of my purse onto the car seat. Out of it fell an apple, a book, pliers, and unimaginable unidentified objects (UUOs) of all kinds, but no cash.

"Do you smell something burning?"

We then noticed a tiny hole in the car upholstery, from which a plume of smoke drifted. A burning marijuana seed was embedded in the seat stuffing, slowly burning its way to the floorboard.

We tried to deal with the problem but couldn't - probably due to plummeting blood sugar. Our plight suddenly seemed unintentionally and hilariously funny. We were sitting in a strange looking semi-blanketed car, which was filling with smoke. We had little food and no money. As we collapsed with laughter, the store proprietor suddenly appeared in the parking lot and yanked open the passenger door, giving us a fright. Fortunately, I didn't fall out onto the pavement.

"Well, ya got fruit, fire, and everything in there, doncha?" he asked. He had a way with words. His statement only intensified our near-hysteria.

After extinquishing the fire with Coca Cola and wolfing down some old Cheetos that we'd found under the car seat, we headed towards home.

"Hey! Aren't you driving awfully slowly?"

"What? Did you say something?"