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1962 becomes 1963 becomes 1962 - Trying to keep the record straight

Knowing that I was in Braintree in the fall-early winter of 1962, and knowing that I'd hitchhiked across the country in 1962 as well - and again in 1963 - doesn't help me much in sorting out the finer points. This is when the title of my story, Lies Lies Lies A True Story comes in handy. I've got to do some fancy dancing to keep everything lined up just so. Let's just say, if it doesn't make sense to the reader, it makes even less sense to me, and I was there the whole time. I know, also, that I was in Hollywood in 1963. I know that because Mongo Santamaria's version of Cannonball Adderey's "Watermelon Man" was on the charts in that year, and it got heavy radio play. That record was done in New York in December 1962 and charted early the next year. I know it was early 1963 because Follow the Boys, the last-ever top 20 record by Connie Francis, was in the charts in April, but released in February. What happened between leaving Braintree in December of 1962 and hitching back to Boston via New York by the fall of 1963? I dunno. I'll piece it together eventually. Or not. We'll have to muddle through somehow. I know that Del Shannon's cover of the Lennon-McCartney song, "From Me To You" was on the radio while I traveled east in 1963. It charted in June, but apparently the early success of the Beatles in England, led American DJs to play Del's cover version a month or two beyond it's life as a Billboard hit.

The exact sequence is lost to me now, but I wound up in Los Angeles for part of summer 1962.  I know I was there in August because that’s where I was when Marilyn Monroe died.  Everyone knows by now that Hollywood is only a small section of Los Angeles, a few square miles and three postal zones (28, 38, 48) which by year’s end would become 900-prefix ZIP codes.  Yes, my children, the Zone Improvement Plan is what ZIP codes are named after.  The ZIP code was the second great leap forward that I witnessed vis-a-vis the United States Postal Service.

The first was the birth of the red-white-and-blue color scheme that the USPS adopted. Before the RW&B, all of the street-installed postal boxes, postal service trucks and, well, all things Postal had always been painted drab army green until the late 1950s when a visitor from mother England complained that she couldn’t readily differentiate between garbage cans and mailboxes.  Yes, one person can make a difference.  Ironically, we all know that more garbage passes through mailboxes today than through garbage cans.  Before ZIP codes and red-white-and-blue Postal things, there wasn’t much in the way of garbage being delivered to our homes. Mostly we got mail. Letters. Bills. A direct mailer or two. But the efficiency of ZIP codes and the graduation of the Post Office from olive drab to red-white-and-blue were omens that nobody recognized. Now it's too late to do anything to make things so much less efficient that it would be futile to stuff everybody's mailbox with Value Coupons and reams of news-printed "circulars" begging us to fall for many more come-ons than we really deserve.

And I know where I was when the ZIP was introduced: in the El Paso County Jail, Colorado Springs, Colorado. How I got there is part of this chapter. It was definitely a whirlwind because my dear sister Alaine sent me bus fare to get me back to California after I got out of jail. And soon after I was back in Costa Mesa, I was on the road again, living the journey outlined in Going East - Part One.

Marilyn Monroe died on August 20, 1962.  I remember the day well because I was working in Hollywood where coule be felt a tangible sense of shock and loss.  Now that I’m desensitized and jaded, Marilyn Monroe doesn’t mean so much...until I start thinking about her:  more than a movie star; vulnerable; smart; talented.  And possessed of such frailty that she actually appeared in public as herself now and again—warts and all, as they say.  But of course nowadays, warts are horrible things, and those who suffer such are expected to live as though nothing was wrong.  There are few different drummers, few acceptable eccentrics.  No Laurence Harveys, Marilyn Monroes, Montgomery Clifts, Jimmy Deans, Adlai Stevensons.  Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor.  Stars in heaven.  There are no institutions for people who really need them, and too many institutions for people who don’t.

I had spent parts of 1962 - perhaps my most far-flung year ever - in Costa Mesa, Florida, Indianapolis, Braintree, Hollywood, Colorado Springs and Newport Beach. Which followed what I do not know except that I would not see Costa Mesa again until 1967, and then only briefly, before being ridden out of town on the proverbial rail. (See The Summer Of Love)%%

In Hollywood I worked at a photogaphy studio on Cahuenga Bolulevard between Hollywood & Sunset and above or across the street from Shelly’s Manhole, a small and important jazz club whose proprietor Shelly Manne was one of the leading drummers during our most recent jazz heyday from the late fifties to early sixties  Not that I am or was a jazzaficianado—only the most commercial crossover jazz caught my ear, and there was a lot of crossover jazz during that heyday.  If I ever did listen to "real" jazz it would have been with Peggy at The Insomniac in Hermosa Beach (See%%)

The photography studio was the kind of outfit that took school and family shots—not the headshots-and-resume stuff you’d expect from a photospot in the heart of Hollywood.  My job was to package and mail the finished work.  All the employees at some point had to play guinea pig and sit for a new photographer or be a foto-foil for some shuterbugy’s new camera, light set, backdrop scheme or whatever.  I remember the shot I ended up with, posed on a three-quarter high stool and wearing a powder blue cardigan sweater, white shirt and the dark tan slacks that Mr. So-And-So (the inventor—more later) had tailored for me when we took a weekend hasta-la-vista to Encenada, Mexico. Why I remember this stuff boggles me.

The Inventor, The Film Editor, and Wonderland Drive

The inventor was one of the men who shared the house on Wonderland Drive where I for some reason served as houseboy while also working at the photo studio.  The other buy’s name I do recall, a film editor named something like Tony de Zarraga, because he wished to win my affections (or lack of same) by offering drugs—pills and marijuana, the latter of which I accepted, with no favors being returned.  I remember the mary-jane because we were listening to a new album by The Crystals and, while there were some ballads on the disc (especially “What A Nice Way To Turn Seventeen”), the slow tunes seemed to go faster than the danceable ones.  It was as though 2 minutes 43 seconds worth of “He’s Sure The Boy I Love” lasted 24:30 instead.

So that was my introduction to marijuana.  I wouldn’t even come into contact with it agian until 1966 in the middle of a south-end Boston street getting paranoid because Jimi Hendrix was too intense.

Oh, I almost forgot about Leo.  Leo was head of the mailroom at work.  The two other stuffers-and-mailers were jolly serious Aunt Sylvias who talked mostly about going tl and from Hollywood/San Fernando Valley (Burbank) via Cahuenga Pass, a wide ribbon that cuts through the Hollywood HIlls above Vine Street and lets you out at the deceptively pleasant lip of that flat desert Valley that all of America has come to imitate.  In the San Fernando Valley were born the fast-food strips, “shopping centers” (malls without roofs) and miracle mile upon miracle mile of liquor stores, car dealerships and insurance agencies.

But Leo.  Leo was about 4 feet 9 inches tall.  Very fey, but more like a little old lady than a little old queen.  He was one heck of a fairy, and if it weren’t for the locale being Hollywood instead of Killarny, Leo surely would be thought of only as one heck of a lepruchan.  He was about 40 years old.  Most importantly, Leo was the most major fan that “singer” Andy Williams ever had.  I mean Leo worshipped Andy Williams’ singing.  Leo spent his 1962 Las Vegas vacation in the hotel lounge (“not even the big room” as they say) where Andy Williams sang only for Leo, and where Leo swooned only for Andy Williams, well, not Andy Williams, the man, but more startling, Andy Williams, the voice.  Don’t get me wrong, we all know what we like, and I admit to having taken a liking to many things which to others would be immediately recognizable as mediocre if not just plain awful, and some of which to me, in time, would be found for what they were.  But Andy Williams?  He was the first singer to un-invent singing by inventing echo-pop and surviving in that chasm for many many years.  And Leo, if you’re alive, you must be as happy as the leprochan you could-a-been in Killarny: Andy Williams has staged somewhat of a comeback and has opublished a memoir titled "Moon River and Me."

Just in case the reader doesn't care, I should mention that Andy Williams' first wife was Claudine Longet, who later found unmarital unbliss with a handsome skier named %%%Kiley. Unbliss because she shot him dead as he skied down a slope in Aspen CO circa 19%%.

Leo and I were on lunch break when the Los Angeles Times-Mirror “EXTRA” edition hit the streets, telling of Marilyn’s death.  Our usual lunchtime routine would be hot-dogs at a very friendly stand next to the “Dot” Records building (a division of Paramount Pictures that would fold when ABC Paramount was born and everything shifted to places uinknown, except that ABC Paramount would somehow turn into MCA. The old Dot Records building later became the Merv Griffin Theater, where his talk show was taped. Still later, and to this day, it is the Jeapordy! studio.

After lunch we’d walk around a little, or stop in at Wallach’s Music City, Sunset-and-Vine, where they had a huge sheet music department and two pianos to try the music on and, even more wonderful, Wallach’s had at least ten soundproof listening booths where you could play entire albums—through speakers, not headphones—on your way to deciding what or what not to add to your collection.

With the arrival of the first “EXTRA” that either of us had seen, we walked up Hollywood Boulevard to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (now Mann’s Chinese Twin Cinema), coming to Marilyn’s Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk star en route, where flowers already lay.  At Grauman’s a sizable crowd had gathered to share what seemed for each a personal loss. Grief for a most singular “movie star.”  I’m not saying something like, “They sure don’t make movie stars like her anymore,” just remarking that some souls touch uncountable lives while others touch none.  Does the fact that Elizabeth Taylor was first on the scene of Montgomery Clift’s bloody car wreck on the downhill side of Mullholland Drive make Ms. Taylor special? No.  But the fact that she reached down into Monty’s throat and removed several of his teeth before resuscutating him.  That sets “Liz” apart.  More than do her many illneses and personal tragedies, and certainly much more than does her talent as an actress.  Marilyn knew acting viscerally.  She performed viscerally.  But her blondness, her breathy stage personna disqualified her as anything more than a blonde.  And Liz?  Even as a child she was considered to be a talented actress.  What if Marilyn Monroe had never have bleached her naturally-brown hair.

Leo went home early that day; quite probably turning to the Andy Williams “Song of Bernadette” single, “The Village of Lourdes” or something at least sad, if not “sacred.”

Next time I saw Leo was when I came back to Hollywood from Braintree in 1963.  He was having lunch at our hot-dog stand.  He told me that Andy Williams’ new single was in the top forty after only one week in release.  Andy, Andy, Andy.  Leo, Leo, Leo.

Sunset Boulevard

Before moving into the Wonderland house I stayed in an old fashioned rooming house on Hudson Street just off Sunset Boulevard.  I was in the underage gay scene.  How I got there from Costa Mesa I don’t know.   There was some fun to be enjoyed, some fun to be had, but we were all 17-18 years old—so what did we know about fun?  Just out of High School.  Runaways. Kids who lived at home but spent most of their time living away from home.  My friends here were girls.  Some called them fag-hags.  Some people still do call girls with gay friends fag-hags.  Now aren’t those people just about the loveliest people you’ll ever want to know?  Pathetic.  No, these were kids just like everyone else in that scene.  Having fun.  No future for now.

For most of us, these few months were “in between time”—nothing more than a last-minute “how I spent my summer vacation” kind of time.  Many would soon be finding fulltime jobs, finding husbands, finding wives, finding colleges and moving on.  Only a few would remain in the scene, grow up in the scene and die not far from the scene.

But now was for fun.  We stayed up from Friday night to Sunday morning.  Parties.  Beach parties.  After-hours clubs.  Pantomime.  Charades.  Did anyone ever have sex?  Some did.  I didn’t have sex with my friends, that’s for sure, and since I spent nearly all my free time with my friends, I didn’t have sex much at all.  Susan was troup leader.  She had a huge car that she loved to drive, and she loved to play taxi-mom.  I moved into Wonderland Drive on a Sunday.  Susan helped me cart my stuff up from Hudson.  I never saw her again.

As for Wonderland Drive

Wonderland Drive, as an astute reader will immediately realize, is the winding upward climbing narrow street that quickly hides travelers from Laurel Canyon Boulevard and thrusts them up to high dollar Hollywood real estate, with the highest dollars being reporesented the higher you climb thos winding roads that quickly thrusts you from the mundane thoroughfares that feel their way along the floors of valleys that surround Los Angeles.

Wonderland Drive is most famous for being the location of a grizzly scene of mayhem in which John Holmes, bereft of his money-maker, had more than a tangential role.

Life at the house on Wonderland Drive was getting kind of nuts-o, especially with the arrival of John, a young hustler from Colorado, who would be the inventor’s temporary tinker.  Believe it or not, Ripley (an actual expression of the day) I was more than only somewhat of an innocent, even at 18, and even after being a novice in boyland; even after knowing Marge; making friends with Peggy and going with her to hear beat poetry ; juvenile hall, California Youth Authority, home, “some of the boys” at school.  It would be several months before I would really be conscious of my place within the lifestyle.  For now, I just happened to be there, not sexually involved except to say “no” to deZarraga and “yes” to ten bucks here and there from the occasional motorist.

Wonderland house was near the end of one of those sharply inclined and wildly narrow vines that sprout from Laurel Canyon Boulevard, itself a jaunty branch off Sunset Boulevard.  And there came John - the first, and only, hustler I knew, and the first graduate of the juvenile detention system that I met outside that system.  John was eager.  Nineteen.  Eager to unbutton his jeans and pull me down.  As often as possible we’d conspire this way, starting at the moment when we were left alone in the house or on the property.  And eager John had a friend whom he billed as even more eager than he, coming in from Colorado. I don't remember his friend's name but he was not into hustling; he was better looking and more appealing all around than John - probably because he did NOT hustle and was forbidden fruit.

We were bad.  We had fun.  We ran off, all three of us, to Colorado Springs.  And in Colorado Springs, John and his friend were already well known as bad boy hustlers.  At the end of our first week in CS we were pulled over for running a stop sign.  Nobody had a driver’s license.  But John and his pal were in their home town and they home-boyed the police into letting them go.  Me?  An out-of-towner.  I was arrested for vagrancy and fined $50.00.  Broke.  What to do?  In lieu of the fine I could reciprocate at the rate of $2.00 per day in the Colorado Springs El Paso County Jail.

Just before dark, my first day in, I was removed from the dormitory cell to a solitary room, a move which probably and quite literally saved my ass.  I was 18.5 years old and not one bit tough.  Tuff sometimes, as in “cool” but never by design.  I think that the only thing I ever thought was cool, with year-in and year-out consistency was smoking cigarettes.  Even today I sometimes think it’s cool.  But tough?  I’ve managed to scare people away at times and at other times to keep people away by being ‘scary’ but with muscle, never.

I mopped floors for a month.  I would’ve loved to do more, but the walkway that encircled a cage full of rather rambunctious young offenders (I thought maybe they were air force guys) was under continual audio surveilance.  I was offended by some of the cat-calls and some of the leers, but in my heart I wanted to blow every last one of those guys.  After all, I’d had plenty of experience sinking to lower levels.  And I’d really enjoyed sinking down to John’s lap level, you bet I did.  Feeling worthless isn’t all bad, as long as there’s somebody around to reinforce the feeling by way of sexual contempt.  I’d learned worthlessness well, for all it was worth.  And cheap.  Nowadays I hear references like cheap and trash and whore.  As if these are terrible conditions.  The most terrible thing about such references is that behavior is so rigidly controlled that any kind of behavior that disagrees with the behavior police (the thought-squad) is said to be vile and disgusting.  Some such behavior is deleterious, true, but other such freedom of will is pleasureable in the highest sense.  I have definitely had my share of religious experiences while ambling to my favorite drummer.

And now, as I make thiese recollections, I taste the spice and humor that invaded my spirit after simultaneously leaving Mr. Wilkinson’s World behind and joining Marge & Peggy’s world of antii-establishmentism.  I doubt seriously that I would have known (quisically, I assure you, not snidely) that Leo (remember Leo?) was an oddball because he liked Andy Williams too much.

While in jail I wrote a nasty letter to John—treatening to get him into serious trouble by telling the law that he’d stolen a bunch of stuff from the Wonderland House in HOLLYWOOD, no less.  The head jailor threw me to the carpet for writing a letter that contined threats and threats of blackmail. Shit!  How was I to know that the mail was being censored?  Only the godforsaken Russians censored the mail—not Americanb folks—not even American justice folks.  The scolding scared the hell outa me but that was the end of it, too.

My fine worked off, I was now back on the street again, trying to make a friend or trying not to meet new friends.  Trying everything now, got to check it out.  Trying nothing new, got to get me out.

I found John’s buddy’s address in the Colorado Springs telephone directory and went to look him up, but found only his mom there at home.  She was nearly blind.  She lived alone, near downtown.  An American-living-on-Elm-Street house.  When I introduced myself she started crying.  “You’re the boy my son got into trouble.  I’m so sorry, honey.  But you’re stuff’s all in here.  Come on in.”

Inside the house was a shambles.  Everthing was upside=out.  She sat down at the edge of an overstuffed couch and told me, “Just look around, you’ll find it all here and there.  That boy is so much trouble.  Now he’ss gone off with his girlfriend somewhere.  Don’t know where.  Out of town, down the street.  Florida?  California?  Always anyplace else but to home.  Unless he’s got into trouble.  Then he’s here for as long as it takes to dig himself out.  I don’t mind him coming back.  If he needs money, he knows I don’t have any money at all; only the house he was born in.  I always welcome him back, understand.  I love him because he’s my boy.  But where did he learn all he knows about trouble?”

An ironing board was set up in the middle of the room, it’s legs hurdling rubble.  I was poking through the mess of stuff and picked out a shirt here, pants there; one of my favorite records.  I ask if I can iron a shirt.  She told me the iron was broke.  I offered to straighten the piles of stuff on the floor but she stopped me with, “Oh, honey, don’t do that.  It’s always like this.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  Most of it’s junk—it aint really dirt.  Anyhow, I can’t see details too much, so I guess that it’s all right with me.  You be good now.  Bye-bye.”

I walked over to Western Union and called Alaine.  I told her I was just out of jail.  She didn’t know I was in to begin with.  Could she wire $34.00 so I could take a Greyhound Bus back home?  She wired the money.  I got on a bus but I don’t know where home would turn out to be.  Only that I was thankful that Lainey got me out of the jam.  I went to her graduation exercise.  Doug spotted me from a row or two over and back, hollering some nasty remark about the style of my hair.  Everyone heard him, and everyone who could gawk looked at me.  Earlier Keith asked me, loudly, “What’s it like being queer?”  I was taken aback that I just couldn’t ask him if you’re queer when you’re getting blown by a guy, or only when you’re the one on his knees?

I was definitely learning more about being queer when I used to sneak into Doug’s bedroom and go sixty-nining with him.  He’d leave his screen off and I’d crawl right into his sack.  It was great being queer when so-and-so wanted their High School blow jobs.  It isn’t that devestating to bring this stuff up here now.  But I was devestated then, in 61-62-63, and I know that this kind of stuff’s still going on.  Yet mostly the participants are following nature’s call, conducting experiments—mostly unharmful ones—while on their sexual path to who knows where they’ll settle.

 

>103109<

Now I would briefly land in Los Angeles again.

It is still 1963, and the chapter that I've named 1963 is really about a small portion of the period, from when I once again headed east - this time to Boston "for good" via New York for bad.

Gardner Street

I found a rooming house on Gardner Street just off Sunset Boulevard. My friends were all gay, except for the two girls who hung in our group. We went to parties. I don't recall even one bar that we might have tried to get into under age. There was a 24-hour bistro on Sunset - almost half way to downtown L.A. from Holllywood poroper. And it was to that place where I would more often than walk either to or from. Many miles.

I fell in love with a boy name Sammy who wore sailor uniforms just for fun. He said we should be sisters. I didn't understand.