"The feeling
remains... 
Even after 
the glitter fades"

Stevie Nicks

 

 

                 List of Amusements 
   and Events...               
                       

Going to Ben Franks, Cantors, Huffs, or International House of Pancakes after the clubs closed

Ben Franks

Walking up to Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, who was sitting at a table at Ben Franks, and giving him your phone number.  He called.

Cantor's on Fairfax

Hanging out at the Wally Heider recording studios just off Hollywood Boulevard.

Cruising the strip

  
Kay Poorboy in center, others not known

Watching The Iron Butterfly play the only song they knew in Gazzari's.

Checking out the psychedelic cars Crow used to paint

Partying at Chateau Marmont
in a posh, classy residence

Partying at the Sunset Highland 
Motel in a tacky, tasteless, cubicle

Eating french fries at Mel's with the Mothers of Invention.

Catching a ride in Buffalo Springfield's old black hearse-- an old 1953 Pontiac with Ontario, Canada plates.

Canter's

Taking a drive down Hollywood Boulevard to stare 
at the faded old starlets that never made it

    

Shopping in Head East clothing store

Discarding stupid behavior only to improve on it later.

Going to the Whisky every night

     

 

   
David Malachowski, guitar player, currently touring with Savoy Brown, sent me this old poster. It's announcing that Savoy Brown, Bonnie and Delaney, and Aynsley Dunbar, will be playing the Whisky March 31 through April 6, 1969.  You've GOT to click and enlarge it.  That poster is a gem!   

Working in Head East and partying after hours upstairs

Telling everybody you saw a skyscraping slinky, and they called you a liar.

Never going to Disneyland. What for?! 

Ordering a Papst Blue Ribbon mirror for a friend at a liquor store. Two weeks later, you are back in the store forgetting all about the mirror. The guy behind the counter says, "Your Pabst mirror's here." You react. "My pap smear! What the hell is it doing here?!"

Batman chasing you around your apartment at the St. Regis saying "...but I'm Batman! Don't you know you I am? ...I'm  Batman!" We had just arrived in Hollywood and had no idea who Adam West was or who Batman was at all, but whoever he was, he was horny for my sister.

Cooking oatmeal. I told my sister one morning that her oatmeal was boiling over. She said "Oh, it always does that."

Having "salad" with David Crosby. Well, ok, it was a salad BOWL of coke.

Arriving home at daybreak and looking for your driveway

Sitting outside the gates at Sonny and Cher's estate after midnight and ringing the buzzer for two hours

                   Hangin' out with your best buddy

Sweet Emily and Leon
(Photo--courtesy of Don Duca)

Hearing Star Spangled Banner for "the FIRST time" and getting goose bumps when Jimi Hendrix played it. 

Getting pulled over for not having a license plate light; and you had just rolled into Hollywood from Illinois with several pounds of Illinois' "FINEST home grown" in the compartments behind the seats of the Corvette. After sweating 80 million bullets, man, you get a warning citation for the burned out light.

Going to court
(Photo, city hall)

Getting pulled over for "suspicion of being suspicious" ( I swear that happened to me.) Isn't that hippy profiling?

                           Staring at this poster of Janis

                                        ...and this one 

Photo by Bob Seidemann, 1967

Wondering who would pick you up hitchhiking-- in my case, Jimmy Stewart in a black Jaguar  sedan, Keith Carradine and his Dad in a rusty old pick-up truck, and Ike Turner in Tina's limo.

Knowing we had the right to remain silent but not the ability.

Finding a nice house to move into,
so you could throw some
great parties

Getting purposely lost in Laurel Canyon so you can find the house you're looking for.

Having a great desire for health and well being through Yoga and Zen, so we fasted for several days on Southern Comfort milkshakes. Yes, it was a reality check. Very zen.

Getting in upstairs at the Whisky where the bands hung out during their breaks

The Whisky

Going to hear Arthur Lee and Cooker duke it out on harmonica at Brave New World

Arthur Lee

Meeting Sky Saxon on Sunset and hanging out with the Seeds at The Sea Witch

Being asked to leave Rod Stewart's room at the Riot House because he was "expecting a bloke"

Getting a good case of the crabs from a barmaid at The London Fog

Going to jail

You consider not going to a small get-together at a friend's apartment  because it will probably be boring, (If I remember right, it was a Tupperware party) but Jeff Beck and Ron Wood stumble in the door, literally, uninvited, and play guitars for the rest of the night. That's right--you read it here-- A Tupperware party!

Partying at the top of Sunset Towers

Picking up a Salvador Dali coffee table book to flip  through--Twenty minutes later, you're still gazing at the first painting.

"Gala contemplating the Mediterranean Sea,
which at twenty meters becomes the
portrait of Abraham Lincoln"

Drag racing down the Strip with Jan and Dean

Sitting at a stop light, and you glance over to see who's sitting in the car beside you. You notice the guy has a gun pointed at you. You point your finger at him and start laughing hysterically as you drive off.
In reality, you were scared shitless, but you faked Your fear  and probably scared the piss out of the guy with the gun. He  thought YOU were the nut.

Fresh out of the cornfields of Illinois, you're trying
to pound your square, shit-kickin', crop-walkin', half-baked self, 
into some new hip-huggin'-high-heeled-Sunset-Strip-walkin' 
man-magnet mega boots... in the dead of summer.
 EEEE-Hah!

Elmer Valentine, the owner of the Whisky, is calling you up to tell you to grab a girlfriend, because he and his motorcycle buddy are partying and want you to come over. Knowing that his motorcycle sidekick is Steve McQueen, you decline because they both have short hair. Yuk!

Wondering "what's-the-deal?!" with your horrific hangover...

Remedy:  Hair-of-dog.

Standing outside the Whisky after partying upstairs all night, you start feeling sick as a dog, so holding your breath, you run across the street to use the john at the gas station. When you reach for the doorknob, the door opens and some guy comes walking out at the same moment, unfortunately, that you're no longer able to hold yourself; and you spew a good gallon of it all over the guy's spanking new two-piece leather suit. Appalled and in shock, the guy screams and runs. You go in the john, do your ugly business, and cross back across the street to the Whisky just in time to hear Procol Harum's long version of "A White Shade of Pale."

                                 Babysitting your love child

Getting to hear J.J. Cale's first album before it was recorded, in your living room--just him and his guitar. He was scruffy and next to homeless, but he played songs like: 
Crazy Mama, Cocaine, After Midnight, Magnolia, and 
Call Me the Breeze. 

Radical Behavior... 
If your parents said not to do it,
then that was your ticket to ride.
       
My daughter, Teri, and Jan from the Classic Cat,
 in defiance of parental training.

Watching Buddy Miles weave up and down 
the Strip in his Corvette

Gettin' yer rocks off...........thirty years later

Staying clean-ass away from Phil Spector's house, because you had heard the rumors about his glass coffee table. He was
evidently paying people to shit on it.

Buying a cheap buzz 

Dodging Charlie Manson and his family

Getting covertly dosed in Pandora's Box

Smoking a doobie while taking Dead Man's Curve at 
a "high"  speed of almost 20mph!!!

Getting thrown in Sybil Brand prison for misdemeanors if you were female, because there were no women's jails. I spent a day and a half in prison after running a red light. The Manson girls were in there for murder! I ate my dinner off iron plates using plastic 'silverware. I was treated like a criminal for a whole day. They sprayed me down and checked every crevice, like ears, for ex.. They made me take off everything, like my wigs and hairpieces and all my eyelashes. I felt so stupid and humiliated as a criminal. ...and other inmates were watching all this go down, and laughing their asses off. I made myself a promise to never run another red light. Yellow ones, but not the red.

Choosing a color for the evening...
Brown? Red? Clear? Rainbow? Orange?
 Purple Haze? or Acapulco Gold?

Being asked if you would cook dinner for Elton John at Leon Russell's house. You get high first, so that cleaning up the kitchen will be easier, but then you pass out, and miss out on everything, including pizza delivery, and of course, ELTON.

Going to Denny's after hours and checking out
 Rodney Bingenheimer's table to see who he's dragged in

Sitting in the Bizarre-Bazzar trying to get high by smoking huge joints of complimentary Bizarre-Bananadine ("Mellow Yellow") --didn't work.

Baking banana peels very slowly for hours so they could be crushed and smoked, since we were certain that the song "Mellow Yellow" was a secret message from Donovan about  getting high on bananas. Didn't work.

Gathering together for a holiday meal--Kraft macaroni and cheese, a bottle of Dom Perignon, and a doobie. Merry Thanksgiving, man!

Memorable shopping at the Laurel Canyon store for like candy bars and shit.

Helping Jimi Hendrix try on a purple velvet jacket when he shopped in Head East. I made that jacket. Why didn't I make purple velvet pants? What was I thinking?!

     Hangin out in the kitchen 
      at the Plantation early on 
         Sunday morning waiting for
                the swap meets to open  

Sitting out on the cliffs at the beach and waiting for the great tidal wave to roll in that would have washed the entire city of Los Angeles off the map, but we sat there and we waited and waited and waited. Los Angeles is still there.

Getting backstage at the 
Forum or the Hollywood Bowl

Going to Barney's Beanery

Going a few doors up from the Whisky into Dobie Gray's apartment to cop a buzz. Nice and handy.

Never hanging around actors much--they were too strange, man.

You may have considered going to Woodstock, but why!? You'd miss a few days in Hollywood!

Going to see Lawrence Welk at the Palladium 
when your granny comes to town

The Palladium

You're sitting on the john the morning after your party, with a massive hangover. From that low position, you notice white dust left on the countertop from last night, and you know what a perfect hangover remedy that stuff can be. You scrape it into two nice thin lines and...very quickly FIND OUT THAT IT"S Ajax!!!!!!!!

Going to see The Cream and the
 Electric Prunes at the Santa Monica Civic

Photo: Courtesy of Preston Ritter

Waiting for the parade of musicians, groupies, etc. to clear the hallway before you can even step out  of a room at the Riot House (aka Continental Hyatt House) at check-out time.

The Riot House

          

Hallucinating giant wieners

Hearing your brakes scrape metal  to metal coming down the canyon

Celebrating the results of your pap smear

Running into a friend at The 5th Estate, who reportedly carried on for six days and nights with Miss Mercy of the GTO's and Brian Jones; but in order to "protect the guilty," he refrained from spreading what he called"lovely memoirs"

Trying to get inside your car, by entering through 
a hole in the door, instead of the traditional 
method our parents used.  

Little Red Corvette

If you were female, you crossed the street to avoid walking past the front door of Filthy McNasty's strip joint.

Hiring a maid to clean
                               "Ester"

Borrowing money from your maid

Running into Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Jim Morrison, Led Zep, David Crosby, Janis Joplin, Eric Burden, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gram Parsons, John Phillips, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, John Mayall, the Cream, etc. at parties and clubs

Dodging Sweet Emily's rolling pin at Leon's on Skyhill Drive.

Sunday morning coming down.

Waking up one day to find Paul McCartney's head had been sawed off the giant Beatle Billboard down by Head East on Sunset; then the whole world was in mourning for days over the "Paul McCartney is dead" story

Billboard

  Convincing record executives
            to sit and hear your songs
             
            "Unknown names"

Being sad that Vito's son, Godot, died so young

Going to parties at the Landmark

  

Getting thrown out of the Landmark.

Going to other clubs besides the Whisky such as: The Cheetah, The Trip, The Sea Witch, the Troubadour, The Palomino Club, London Fog, Thee Experience, Pandora's Box, Brave New World, the Aquarius, The Ash Grove,, Gazzari's...

The Palomino Club

Also, Ciro's, Sneaky Pete's, The Unicorn, The Galaxy, Bido Lido's

Waiting for "morning" coffee at 4:00 in the afternoon.

Following Leon Russell, who was driving his Rolls Royce from his house on Sky Hill Drive to an Elton John/Leon Russell concert at the Forum.

Listening to old blues records

Throwing up in a phone booth, but your ill state of mind quickly changes as you watch the stuff turn into beautiful psychedelic designs as it splatters on the floor and on your shoes. Now THAT was kool I must admit. Never saw that happen but once in my life, and I still to this day, have a vivid recollection of that beautiful puke. It was awesome...a really unique experience.

                       
Experiencing the taste delights of a hippie "gourmet" breakfast with a friend.

The ritual of sitting in the parking lot of "31 Flavors" and smoking a joint before going inside. Always.

Going to The Pink Pussycat--a strip club, Shelly's Manhole, a jazz club, and in the early sixties, The Peppermint Lounge, a go-go dance club. 

Living at the Castle Argyle

Cruising the freeway after midnight at around 45mph until dawn; listening to The White Album at the loudest volume your car stereo would peak. Earlier that day, you had installed the new high-tech psychedelic strip of electronic blinking lights in your backseat that flickered and flashed to the music. It was "far out" man!

                   Doing the-Hollywood-nose-job thang...

Driving by Houdini's ruins and Frank Zappa's house. You could often see glimpses of naked people in Zappa's woodsy back yard if you looked real hard. I think I saw a butt-cheek and a leg once, but it may have been a large mushroom.

While dancing on top of a grand piano at the Classic Cat you are firmly advising Evil Kneivel to leave you the hell alone or you would get a bouncer to throw his ass out! He apologizes and offers to buy you a drink. You signal, Jay, the bouncer.

You're released from Sybil Brand Prison (for jaywalking) and after the long excruciating walk out of there, you see your sister at the end of the long walk standing next to a long black limo, chauffeured by a mafia dude waiting to take you home. He was an old friend that had been making a living six months ago selling empty coke bottles, and he owed us a favor.

Falling in love  
                           Linda and Bird

Getting offers from Stan Freberg to be in famous commercials

Catching things....

                              
 ...some rays                    ...some zzz's                ...some crabs

Shoplifting Snickers at Seven Eleven

Being awake in the daytime

Drinking triple Blood Mary's with no ice, in the Hollywood Roosevelt's white dining room during Sunday brunch with a bunch of pretentious little old ladies in hats and gloves, sitting around staring at you.

Hollywood Roosevelt

Stealing the book called "Steal This Book." Did it.

Having to dance
for a living half-dressed

Janis Joplin
Photo: Thanks to Soosi

Living at places like the St. Regis, the Castle Argyle, the House of Awareness, and the Plantation
 

Visiting Muddy Waters who lived down on the corner near
the House of Awareness in a dinky little walk-up.

 Making a living earning whiplash checks

The Hag
Hating Merle Haggard, 'Okie From Muskogee'

Riding in limos

Watching rock and roll icons puke-- Joe Cocker on stage, and Jim Morrison, all over my girlfriend, Kay, back by the restrooms at the Whisky, and Janis Joplin on the dance floor at the Palomino Club

Finding a beautiful lead singer 
to bring home and stare at

Ron Darling 
"Smokestack Lightning"

Hearing Elmer Valentine and Steve McQueen, his motorcycle buddy, roar up to the front door of the Whisky; then leave their motorcycles sitting in the No Parking zone

Watching walls drip

You get out of bed at six a.m. to take a pee, and when you walk back to your bedroom, you discover the maid has made your bed

Going to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills
to pay on a layaway.

Getting ready for a concert.
This is Carol, me, Cooker and Cher.

Driving back from Illinois to Hollywood. You wanna get back 
so bad that you don't care that you don't have a clutch in the 
Vette or a right contact lens. You get into first gear with the engine shut off.
Turn on the ignition and lope to a start in first gear; 
you have to watch the tachometer to switch gears to second, 
third and fourth.  You finally get up to
around sixty-five 
miles an hour. 
Then you close one eye and haul ass west!

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"Got that big ole sun
Pokin' prodigal fun
Like a melody sent
 From the logical one"