New York City

New York City

Kathy and I went on a trip to New York City.  We traveled across country in her tiny Morris Mini Minor with a Canadian leaf painted on the rooftop.  It was the second time I had traveled across America by car.  This time it was in a car that felt like a giant roller skate that was shaking apart at 40 mph and we were sucking up everyone else’s exhaust.  When we reached our destination I had to sleep for a week  to recover

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We went to visit a club called Dr. Generosity’s.  It was there that I met Bernard and wound of staying with him in Queens while Kathy traveled up to New England by herself to stay with friends there.

New York was amazing, nothing like I had ever experienced before.  It was crowded, beautiful, ugly, scary, and big.  The people were direct and intimidating.  The subway was like being in a nightmare with the weirdest people I have ever seen.

I stayed up all night and slept during the day to reduce the stimulation of so many people.  We hung out at a club called Doctor Generosity’s almost every night until it closed at 4 am.  Then we took the subway to Queens and slept in a tie-dyed parachute tent in the basement of Bernard’s parents home.

I would make money by embroidering the edges of Pierre Cardin jackets, which were all the rage in New York then.  Then I got a job as a leather crafter and would also make patchwork vests and vests with embroidered patches on them for sale.  It was fun going to the garment district to pick out leather to make the vests.  I sold them  to people at Dr. Generosity’s.

I also made a number of outfits for dancers to wear on New Year’s Eve at Joe Namath’s upper east-side club called the Bachelors III.  It was a little scary when we went to deliver the outfits at the club.  Bernie and I looked like hippies.  He had long blond hair.  I had long hair.  We were both wearing bell bottom jeans with patches and “freak flags” on our belts at the hip. 

Freak flags were strips of leather that would bounce when you walked.  Everyone walked fast in the city and the leather strips would swing back and forth. 

Anyway, the club was filled with gangster types of men and they looked at us with hostility as though we came from Mars.  Eventually, someone came and took the garments and paid us and we were out of there in one piece.

Bernard and I went to see Neil Young at Carnegie Hall.  We were great fans of his music.  After the concert we noticed people going back stage so I did too and wound up sitting next to Neil and sharing a beer with him.  We were dressed exactly alike.  He invited me to Elaine’s afterward.  Bernard and I showed up at Elaines and were seated at his table.  I remember Jack Nicholson being there and the place was filled with other famous people.  We didn’t stay long as we felt a little out of place, not being famous and all.

Winter had arrived and I was given a pair of tall, soft, black French leather boots.  I remodeled a large beaver coat that was hanging in Bernard’s basement, complete with a hood and relished being in a snowstorm, dancing under the streetlights while white snow fell all around me.

California was beckoning me back home so Bernard and I drove a car across country for a car service and rented an apartment in the Magic Castle apartments on Franklin Avenue.  I took Jin Shin Do classes by Ron and Iona Teeguarden at the old  Al Jolson  mansion down the street.  It was called the “East West” house and housed students studying Mishio Kushi’s macrobiotic food system.

I got a job as a bookkeeper for Erewhon Health Foods at their factory in Culver City.  It was the beginning of the health food rage and I had a rolodex of every health food store west of the Mississippi.  Every day we were served a freshly cooked macrobiotic lunch attended by fellow workers who may have been covered in flour because they were processing it.  We sat on pillows on the floor around a huge rectangular wooden table.  It was very yummy food, squash pies, salads, and brown rice with sesame seeds.

 I also taught people to make leather costumes for rock and roll performers at a leather store on Sunset Boulevard.  I worked for awhile at the Hollywood Wax Museum in a ticket booth located on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard.

We used to go to "hootenannys" at Own Orr's house in Laurel Canyon.  Everyone was given an instrument of some kind, like a tambourine, and we all sang together various folk songs.

Today I am a little sorry for bringing Bernard out of his city element.  We split up after awhile and he kept our German shepherd dog with him.  I kept the cat.  He made beautiful front doors out of wood but I lost track of him after awhile.