Half Moon Bay Memories & El Granada Observer

Outside Work

&Photo: June (me) washing my 1966 Chevy Malibu on 23rd Avenue (between Ortega & Noriega) in San Francisco–two blocks from Lincoln High School. In the photo this part of 23rd avenue looks flat but I lived on a hilly hill with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the garden. My hair is NOT short; it’s pulled back in a pony tail thingy.

(Guilty Secret: I still had the Malibu when I moved to El Granada and it would have provided me with many more miles of travel had I remembered to put oil in it more often. Now you know.)

The stories that are posted here are in development–changing, through editing– until I decide they are finished. They are my stories; I made them happen; I own them.

Please do not reproduce or copy any of the stories that appear here without the permission of the author–and that’s me, June. Please send me an email. Thanks.

Note: I’m finding that while I feel compelled to “give-up” these stories, at times it’s painful, retching work. Who will understand? These stories come from a different time, 30 years ago, when “gonzo” journalist Hunter Thompson ruled– before the cell phone and flat -screen tvs and powerbooks–before houses were piggy banks–before there were security cameras on every street corner and in every store–

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The House on 23rd Avenue

The house stood on a hill, maybe the sixth from the top. Between busy Noriega– which had a corner toy store and two blocks away stood the Crocker Bank, the one that Patty Hearst “helped” rob, or so we were told–and quiet Ortega. Although I do wish I had investigated the Conservatory of Music on 19th Avenue–that’s where I caught the bus, the “28″. But I never even walked up to the front door of the Conservatory. Who knows what famous pianist or other musician was practicing inside, who knows?

The Conservatory of Music stood east of my house and the “reservoir” was in the other direction, grassy hills with gnarly trees that I loved to play in.

…More…

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Taped interview I did with Pete Douglas at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Miramar Beach, August 8, 1979 or What Got Me Searching For The Beatniks That Lived At The Abalone Factory, Princeton-By-The-Sea

Pete Douglas (PD): I was a bohemian of the 1950s, in college and afte, anti-establishment, yet there was the other straight side of me. I had a family and I had to get a job and I took a job in this county (San Mateo) as an adult probation officer. Which is really antithesis. It’s not like a regular job–but it’s an official police sort of job which made me very suspect with the hardcore beats that used to come through here.

June: What is a beatnik?

PD: A lot of good stuff out on that. The beatniks were a real extension of the American bohemia right on from the turn of the century, the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s. It was just another twist or continuation–however the style it took was anti-establishment, anti-materialistic America. They had intellectual leaders like Sarte, the French writer and [San Francisco poet/ City Lights bookstore owner Lawrence] Ferlinghetti.

Phone rings. “Douglas speaking. Yeah. Every Sunday. This Sunday is the guitarist Charlie Byrd. And then following that is …., 13-piece Latin orchestra. Yeah, we’re hardcore jazz although we do a greater variety of it like traditional, siwng, hop, mainstream, progressive, spacey, funk, Laqtin….Yeah, I’ll mail you something right now and if you want to remain on the mailing list the membership is $3 a year. I’ll mail you something right now. What’s your name? Carder? Oakland? Tremendous this fall. We’ve got a blues thing, Sunnyland Slim and Eddie Clean Head Vincent on the 9th, David Fathead Newman on the 16th, Zoots Sims….We’ve been doing this for 14 yars. Every Sunday. That’s the only time we do it. Right on the beach. Beautiful small room for jazz. Bring your own juice. Okay.”

June: Wouldn’t you say that the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society has some of the finest jazz music in the world?

PD: Now I could say, yes. We have the best instrumentalists in non-classical music, which tends to be jazz oriented but not all of it is hardcore jazz.

June: Is it the only jazz house of its kind in northern California?

PD: Kummbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz is–they got the idea and incorporated as a non-profit music organization and they do primarily jazz once or twice a week. And they followed our pattern. That’s the only other non-profit I know of.

Phone rings. “Douglas speaking. Yes. Well, maybe I can help you. Maybe not. How many people are you talking about? Let me look (sound of paper rustling). I think you’re in trouble because a weddings booked in here. You are. It’s taken. That’s possible but I’d have to check. Someone has tentatively booked it but it’s been a long time. 27th. I have something here, tentatively, but it looks really tentative. I can check it out and get back to you. Let me get your name.

June: What was your wife’s name?

Pete: Pat, Patricia.

June: And you’ve always had a fascinating with the beach ever since you were down at Hermosa and the Lighthouse? What is that fascination? Where does it come from?

Pete: Some people like the beach, the whole space. Beach communities are liberal, live and let live, more tolerant, and, of course, in S. California there’s a lot of action on the beach–whether it be jazz or other things. Going back to the 1920s and 30s big dance halls were all on the beach, amusement parks, that kind of thing. That’s the only place I felt a sense of freedom, on the beach, as opposed to the conventional residential setting.

June: You say you lived like a beatnik. What does that mean?

Pete: Well, the beatnik style of dress was merely any odd collection of clothing that you pick up for very little money…In other words to exist without the conventional jobs, to exist without the 9-5 jobs. The freedom to deal with your interest in arts and crafts…Jazz has always been associated with and still is the minority music, a protest music, an unconventional music, as opposed too ur European musical traditions.

June: I’ve noticed that you’ve changed your attire from what you used to wear.

Pete: The only thing that’s changed is that I used to wear sneakers, ratty old sneakers which is nothing new. Styles change and…change. I’ve been wearing levis since I was 11-years-old or at least when I could buy my own. And in Los Angeles, on the beach, it was levis and the levis have only changed to the extent that they’re slightly flared, with a belt. Prior to the mod scene of the 1960s, it was not cool to wear a belt. You jusst didn’t wear a belt with levis. In my case, I’ve had these old captain’s hats and I also always wear a turtleneck cuz they’re kind of comfortable when it’s cool…

June: Seems like you’re still living a dual lifestyle.

Pete: Yeah. The beats were into the so-called alternative lifestyle or economic lifestyle before they invented the word. And, of course, the stereotype of the laid back beat was to have his coffee shop with cards, poetry books, chess, etc….

June: Didn’t you want to run your own espresso shop?

Pete: Oh, yeah. Even in Santa Barbara, before I got out of college. Oh, by the way, being a graduate of college was not exaclty in the beat tradition. They were drop-outs…but I was a dual person coming from—and this was not unlike the freaks of the 1960s–a lot of ‘em were upper middle class kids who revolted against everything and a lot of the beats were upper middle class kids. Some of ‘em were just bums. Took on the appearance because it was fashionable. The beats had t survive with some kind of economic mom and pop store. If they could figure out how to do it, live off the crumbs of society, and, of course, they were really big in North Beach….

June: This little building downstairs was originally built in the 1940s?

Pete: I think it was built around 1947.

June: So before that there was nothing there?

Pete: No.

June: I remember you looked through the police “blue sheets”. What did they tell you?

Pete: Felonious assault, burglary. See, it was run by Gladys Klingenberger and her husband, Carroll.

June: Do you think they’re still alive?

Pete: I think Carroll died and I just don’t think Gladys is around. I last saw her over ten years ago at the Palace Miramar Hotel, at the bar, juiced, bad mouthing everybody as usual.

June: You couldn’t get a beer and wine license for the Ebb Tide Cafe?

Pete: By the way, for some reason there is nothing on the books of the ABC about probation officers having a liquor-wine license, even though its prohibited for law enforcement agencies. So I was going to apply for just a beer license cuz I was going to run a little sandwich shop down there in the true beat tradition. There wasn’t enough down there to make a living on but it became a scene, that’s all. And just do it on weekends, cuz I had a job.

June: What about that wild party in the ’60s? Can you describe that for me again.

Pete: Karen Jensen, now known as Karen Black.

June: You mean, the actress?

Pete: Yep. That’s her. She made it in Hollywood. I’m almost positive it is. Now it looks like her, it sounds like her name changed, she’s from San Mateo. There used to be a Sunday afternoon, drop-in, open house kind of thing. Down in the little place. There was just a little fence around it and a picnic table and a hi fi speaker outside blaring music. And I used to sit out there in my hat and occasionally wave in some interesting people driving by. Well, I didn’t have any money. I had to create my own social scene. Where else could be better than Miramar Beach? It’s always been a place, rich or poor.

Pete: So it was not unusual for us to have a spontaneous party every Sunday. There’s always somebody who dropped in. More in the tradition of the beat attitude and in my own personal make-up, I collect people, not just my kind of people, but all kinds of people.

Pete: So a lot of different kinds of people felt welcome. I could be comfortable with the middle-class college graduate or the factory worker who was into playing folk music, or the artist, the homosexuals, the show people, all these cliques, different varieties, which tended to be everything but straight middle America.

Pete: Well this happened to be one of those afternoons in which everything happened. It started with the usual collection of hanger-outers ont he Coastside–like Forest Young, the painter, Chuck and David next door who lived together…Someone brought Karen along and she was in a bathing suit. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon so she proceeds to pose on the picnic bench out there. Now the party was developing real good and by chance here comes the hardcore beat scene from Princeton where they were all hanging out at Michael McCracken’s place–at the old Abalone Factory. That was his scene.

June: The Abalone Factory?

Pete: It was nothing but a wood frame old building that generally was slightly living quarters and another part was sstorage. And why it was called the Abalone Factory, I don’t know. It might have been a processing plant for abalones.

June: Who was Michael McCracken?

Pete: I wonder what happened to him. He was what you’d call the “peer leader”, hardcore on this scene, among many others. And so, the “On the Road” characters, Kerouac, and some of the characters in his book that was a point of reference when they’re coming down the highway, they’d fall in.

June: They stop at his (the Abalone Factory) place?

Pete: Yeah. McCracken suspected me because I was employed. That was enough right there. And as a probation officer, that was even worse. So McCracken didn’t–but he loved to be argumentative. The beats were always arguing a point.

Pete: Black Brazilian music. Music of the slums on the hills overlooking Rio. It’s a hell of a great dance music…It’s the music of the carnival and so forth of Rio. In the hot sun there’s nothing like it.

Pete: So we’re dancing. Ben Kilpack, a sociology teacher, showed up with his sociology class on a little outing. He wanted to show them a little something different on the beach. They arrived with cases of beer and they were astounded by what they saw going on around the biulding.

Pete: Finally we coaxed them in–and they were foolish enough to start bringing in their beer which never even reached the front door. By now around this little building there was a collection of at least 50-60 people going at it. Hard party. Dancing, carrying on, arguing. I never saw a totally involved party in my life in which there weren’t passive spectators.

Pete: They were loaded, oblivious to anything going on. Meantime the traffic…Some of the people in their cars stopped and joined the party. It was a street party by now. It was indoor/outdoor everywhere. There were people on the roof. The people in their cars kept getting slower and slower until it created a traffic jam all the way up the street for blocks…By now I’m dancing and I look out and I see we were ringed–a a whole semi-circle–a crowd just standing around and watching us…But I had never seen such a sociological mix at a party.

June: How did it end that day?

Pete: I can’t remember. I was not in good shape to remember.

Pete: Grass-marijuana–was not that prevalent among immediate friends. But there was plenty of it from the beat and show business side of the scene. McCracken and some of ‘em couldn’t figure ? which sex they were. We had a lot of hanky panky out in the weeds, rolling around in the weeds. Incredible, spontaneous party.

June: What about the Bach Brandenburg Concerto? (How did it tie in with the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society?)

Pete: …Another spontaneous party was going on. We were playing jazz and some of the people who visited were engineers from some of the electronic outfits down the Peninsula. And they got hold of this dynamite and so like the boys they were, they have to try it out. I didn’t pay much attention to their interest in the dynamite. I was partying and dancing. So they disappeared and went out on the beach some place.

Pete: Fortunately they went down half a block–didn’t do it right in front of the house. And like I foten do after running the record player a little energetically, you want something a little laid back. I had classic records. I put on Bach Brandenburg Concerto as a kind of relief from the jazz. ..We’re all drunk and happy and continued to dance to Bach….Nothing is more powerful than Bac h…Bach is very dramatic…When I heard the dynamite go off it sounded slightly muffled. But it reverberated very big down in Half Moon Bay. But the sheriff never got on to it.

Pete: Bob Swift, the local science teacher, he was juiced on cheap red wine. He coined the phrase, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society.

Pete: I own the building and the property, the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society of which I am the founder and original president, still has board of directors. Bennet Kilpack is the president and sociology teacher at Canada College.

Pete: I am unsalaried (volunteer acting as concernt manager)….For years there was no money….

June: That’s why you had the other jobs?

Pete: Yeah. I left the probation department and spent two years in suburbia at the San Francisco welfare department and then I got into the mortgage business. Mortgage broker in Palo Alto.

Pete: When [attorney] Brian Jones incorporated the Bach Society and gave us non-profit status for hwich we had no use for cuz we were not taking money from anybody–we were not in business. I was employed. All that was going on was the weekend parties.

Pete: In the Spring of 1966 we had the first public performance. Headliner probably some of the guys that played in the little building [ the former Ebb Tide Cafe].

June: Have any of those musicians “made it”?

Pete: They’re all professional musicians. Leonard Lasher is the principal bassist for the San Francisco Symphony. George Marana [piano?] is a professional but plays commerical music.

June: Pat Britt?

Pete: Pat Britt was the musical founder of the Bach in as much as he brought the first live music here.

June: He is a professional today?

Pete: Yes–but he’s more into the business end of music than the playing end. He’s an A & R [?] man for a record company in Hollywood.

….more to come…

Working Story Title: My Search For The Beatniks That Lived At The Abalone Factory, Princeton-By-The-Sea, Half Moon Bay

[Note on this story--My Search For The Beatniks is part of a bigger piece but standing alone, I see this piece as a visual--an art house movie].

I heard that Michael McCracken had been the leader of the beatnik contingent out at Princeton. This was irresistible–authentic beatniks on the Coastside? What a welcome relief from the history of the Ocean Shore Railroad.

But the McCracken story was something I heard in passing one time. Nobody knew where he was now.

It was 1979 and I was known as a “local historian”–not a title I sought because my dream was to write fiction. My dream was to write. My dream was to write what I wanted to write [and earn money along the way, right?].

When I look back at the other “local historians”–and if you only could see the same images I see, you would understand why I didn’t fit into that category. Some local historians are actually a group of little old ladies, nice enough, but who carefully guard their territory. Actually almost all local historians are conscious of their historical “beat” and don’t encourage trespassers.

Oh, woe to the trespasser of the local historian! Bad things await you–I’ll get to that later.

There are local historians who dress up in costume and entertain history buffs. There are local historians who charge for listening to them speak–and some of them are terrific, too.

There are local historians who write pamphlets, books…make short movies….write columns.

I did some of those things but to be entirely honest I liked writing about the madams and the murders and the mayhem. I liked the feeling that old houses and buildings gave me when they looked old and used up. There was real feeling there.

We’ve spent enough time with the local historian.

I was out to find Michael McCracken, beatnik leader. Couldn’t find him on the Coastside–but I had been born in San Francisco and been there long enough to know that City Lights was home to the beat writers–and that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet owner might be the one who could help.

So I wrote him a letter. I still have the letter and I’d reproduce here but not now.

Through a kindly staff person, “Lawrence” to my request. He gave me the address of a man who I later met at a cafe in North Beach. In this way, my search for Michael McCracken was advanced…..in fact, I sped forward into one writerly adventure after the other.

And that’s what we’re going to do…

Several months later I had an appointment with Marvin Lewis, stellar San Francisco attorney. Just listen to some of his background:

An excerpt from Marvin Lewis’s 1992 obit: “Former San Francisco Supervisor Marvin E. Lewis, one of The City’s greatest trial lawyers and the driving force for the creation of BART, died Saturday. He was 84.

“Renowned for his eloquence, persuasive powers and a touch of flamboyance, Mr. Lewis pioneered the legal concept of psychic injury.

“‘This was one of the exemplary lawyers, not only in San Francisco, but around the country,’ said his old friend and colleague Melvin Belli. ‘He had the warmth and spirit of the law in him.’

“Mr. Lewis’ most famous case was dubbed ‘The Cable Car Named Desire’ when he convinced a San Francisco jury to award damages to a young dance teacher who allegedly lost her mental balance after a cable car accident and became a nymphomaniac….”

You might wonder–legitimately–why I was going to interview the famous attorney Marvin Lewis for a story about beatniks at Princeton. My answer is, you’ll see why.

In the fall of 1979 I walked into Mr. Lewis’s office on Market in San Francisco. He had a full head of hair and his voice was strong and there was no doubt in my mind that he knew exactly what he was going to say–and nothing else.

Of course I was excited. To me, the local historian, this was a long way from the Ocean Shore Railroad and stories of artichokes–this was going to be really good stuff. Unlike some of my local interviews with people who were reluctant to talk about the colorful prohibition era and their role in it, Marvin Lewis had no inhibitions whatsoever.
(Photo: Marvin Lewis, 1970s)

He was perfect.

June: [All I had to ask was]: How did you get involved with Michael McCracken? [and he answered in a rich uninterrupted cascade of detail.]

Marvin Lewis: Well, I’ll tell you how I became involved. In my early years of the law, and I still do some criminal work, I did heavier criminal work. I don’t know how many years we’re going back. I can’t place it exactly. I know I was living in Hillsbourugh so it has to be within the last 20 years.

Maybe 15 years ago if we can place the beatnik era. But it seems that there was a superior court judge in Los Angeles County who knew of me as a lawyer in San Francisco. And he was a personal friend of a wealthy doctor and his wife. And they had three daughters. Two of the daughters had married establishment men and they lived in Beverly Hills and Westwood in L.A.

And, the daughter, Carol, had become, and we’ll use the term–a beatnik.

Mainly lived at that time drinking in the pubs, where the poets recited and the artists had their paintings.

[Carol] had been—was up for trial for the sale of cocaine. And I said I’d like to speak to the mother and the mother came up with one of the daughters, and a very elegantly dressed woman, and a very fine woman, and very distressed over the situation.

[Carol's mother said her daughter] had been living with a man by the name of McCracken, an artist.

I named a fee. It was substantial and I was paid the fee. I said to have the daugher come in.

One day I got a phone call. My secretary said this Carol was coming in with her boyfriend, McCracken. They came in.

I don’t remember whether I was in this building, or whether I was across the street at 703 Market.

Marvin Lewis: I remember that Carol had no make=up, that she wore these coarse black stockings as the beatnik girls then dressed. They all had a uniform just as the later flower children had their type of uniform.

Carol was adorable. Cute, darling girl. Pretty as a picture. Just lovely. When she was dressed up, it was unbelievable. It was like seeing another person. She had a great personality.

McCracken had an English accent. If ever there was a handsome man, he was it. He had big blue eyes, blond hair, spoke very elegantly–like a Doug Fairbanks, Jr. type of accent–but he was a rough type of man, wore a beard which wasn’t too common in those days.

McCracken was tall, six feet. Handsome tattered clothes. Big flowing hair. He was a most interesting man. I loved that English accent. What power he had over these women. Piercing blue eyes. Hypnotic.

After we discussed the facts of the case, he made it very clear to me that they didn’t want any capitalistic money paid to me, as he put it, for the payment of her case.

I said, well, the capitalist money is very good to me and I wouldn’t be taking the case if it wasn’t for that. I’ve already been paid, and very well paid by the mother.

He said, that’s not going to do. I’m going to paint you a beautiful painting, and I will give that to you in full payment for whatever service you perform.

I said, that’s entirely up to you. I’ll be very grateful for whatever you choose to do but it’s certainly not rquired.

So–in the interim a very peculiar thing that I wlll never forget as long as I live occurred. He came up to me one day and said, ‘You know, you’re a very interesting man.’ He said, ‘I find an empathy with you that I never have had with a capitalist world person and the establishment.’ He said, ‘You have made a good reputation for yourself and in your profession. You have money. You dress establishment, and yet,’ he said, ‘you see to fit in with my type of people, and I can have an understanding of you and I like you.’ He said, “I think you must have a rare faculty. You have the ability of living on both sides of the street’. But, he said, ‘I think to make your life fuller, you should have LSD and you should sniff glue’.

I said, Really. I have been doing very well without. In those days I’d never even heard of LSD–never heard of sniffing glue–and I said, I’m not really interested.

‘But’, he said, ‘I know you’re a great lawyer, but you’d be that much greater if you…And he said, ‘Another thing you should have some of our women in your life.’ He said, ‘I think you’re probably just making love to your wife and you need a lot more to broaden yourself’.

Marvin Lewis (ML): I don’t–I really thank you–and I really appreciate it all–but please, thanks, but no thanks.

ML (to June): I finally got them both out, and I went, Oh, my God, I don’t believe this just happened.

I called [my client] Carol and I said, ‘Carol, please, this young man–I don’t want to tell tales out of school’ — but she said, ‘Why didn’t you accept this girl? He gives her to you graciously.

ML: Carol, this isn’t my world

ML (to June): Two weeks later McCracken came in with another little girl–same thing. Same–and this time I made it more forceful than ever. Several days later he said he had to see me so he came in to my office.

MM: I must have been nuts. I know why you didn’t want these women……You want me!!!!

ML: I don’t want you.

MM: I don’t understand what you do want.

ML: Just don’t worry about it.

ML (to June): Anyway, we went along preparing for the trial. Then they sprung the news on me that he [McCracken] had gotten her [Carol] pregnant. I figured I couldn’t very well bring her in front of the jury. She was starting to show and we got the trial ppostponed until the baby could be born. The baby was born down in Princeton where they moved from North Beach.

Carol said it was hard for them to come into the City. They had to hitch rides in. They’d walk for miles to get to my office. She said it was most difficult to get to where the grocery store was. They had no car and they’d walk along the coast until they got to these little stores in Princeton to buy their food.

They were living with others from their group who had gone with them. They had taken over this deserted building.

Finally the day of the trial arrived and I warned them: Don’t have any of the beatniks come into the courtroom. But no matter what I said, they kept coming in.

So the mother came up with two of the daughters-and at my direction got Carol into a beauty parlor where she was coiffured, made-up and they bought her some clothes. She looked like a different person. I hardly recognized her. [McCracken] was very unhappy about this.

Marvin Lewis: “I said, Don’t worry about my personal life. Don’t concern yourself with it.

Michael McCracken: “Oh, I can make you life a paradise. You’ll have a different woman every day. I have beautiful women. Do you want a blonde? Do you want a redhead?

ML: What is this? Are they for a price? Are they prostitutes?

MM: Heavens no. These are all gals with good backgrounds and come from fine families.

ML: Well, what goes?

MM: Oh, that’s the trouble. I thought you were really with it, but you’re really not. In a way you are, but you’re not completely. The Marvin Lewis that I think I see should have the same mentality as I have and you should have what I’m offering you in every way. You’d have a much fuller life and a much happier and enjoyable life.

Marvin Lewis to June: To me, the idea of him just expecting to sit there and watch me copulate was unbelievable.

So the next week my receptionist said that McCracken was in the outer office and had a gift for me. So I said, ‘Have him come in.’ So he came in with another girl. She sat over there [pointing at a chair] and he said, ‘I want you to meet this girl and I want you [the girl] to meet Marvin Lewis’.

He said, ‘I’ve told everybody over at the beach [Princeton-by-the-Sea] what a fabulous person I find you to be’. And he said, ‘I thought you should have this type of woman in your life.’ So he said, whatever her name was, ‘Go around the desk and ball him’.

You gotta be kidding, I said.

And this girl stood up, as if she was a slave to her master, and she was actually going to come around and give herself to me.

ML: In front of you?

MM: Of course. What’s wrong with that?

ML: First of all I don’t perform like that, and secondly, it’s very embarassing for this girl.

MM: Oh, no. Not at all. It’d be a great experience for her, too.

ML (to June) She (”the girl”) said, Oh yes, I understand.

Marvin Lewis (to me): I told Carol, I paid for you to stay with your mother at the St. Francis so I know where I can find you. Don’t go down to Princeton because you’ve got to go to court everyday. I don’t want Michael around and I don’t want the rest of the group around. I’ve got a tough enough case because I’m going to try the police here [which was my way of winning this particular case]

Still some of the people came down into courtroom. Michael never came down.

I argued the case to the jury and I felt that I had it won. I was very pleased and I explained that to the family.

ML (to the family): You keep her here at the St.Francis, whatever happens.

ML (to me): And the judge said, Tomorrow morning, Ladies and gentleman of the jury, we’re going to instruct the jury at 9 o’clock. I don’t mean two minutes past 9. I mean 9. The reason for that, is while the jury is deliberating, I have another case coming in to start.

Everybody understood.

June: The next day Marvin Lewis received a call about 8:30 a.m.

ML (to June): There was no Carol. I figured there was still some period of time but I was still worried. At 5 minutes to 9, the judge called me into chambers.

Judge: ‘Is your client here? Are you ready to proceed?’

ML: No, she isn’t here, your Honor.

Judge: I’m going to tell you, Marvin, what I’m going to do then. If she’s not here in five mintues, I’m going to dismiss this jury and when she shows up, I’m going to put her in jail for contempt.

ML (to June): The case had taken about 3 weeks. I had it won. It was a marvellous jury and I thought I had done a marvellou job on argument.

Ml (to the judge): Judge, will you let me stipulate that she can be excused during the reading of the instructions?

Judge: Marvin, you know better than that. It’s a criminal case and you cannot stipulate that for her absence.

ML (to judge): You’re right.

Judge: I’ll give you one half-hour–but that’s it.

Marvin Lewis (to June): This puts one way back with a half-hour for the other case. So I got my investigators, four of them.

ML (to investigators): Scour North Beach. Find her wherever she is.

ML (to June) In the meantime Carol’s mother told me that McCracken came home from Princeton and said she wasn’t going to live in any goddamn capitalist hotel any longer. He had taken her to some place in North Beach.

I decided to lock myself in the john…

ML (to his investigators): If you find her you come and get me and I’ll come out.

ML (to June): So at about 9:30 a.m. the judge wanted to know where I was and they couldn’t find me and I heard through the paging system my name being called and I didnt’ come out of the john–so I figured they were going to hold me in contempt.

About ten minutes to ten the investigators came and said they found Carol. She was outside. Carol and Michael had misunderstood. They thought it was ten. McCracken had come and he was with Carol and said not for me to get excited. Everything was all right.

To make a long story short, Carol was acquitted. Then after she was acquitted, the judge did not put her in jail for contempt.

A couple of weeks after that I heard from McCracken.

MM: Next Sunday, your painting will be ready. Come and get it.

ML: How do I find you?

MM: Just go to a grocery store in Princeton and they’ll tell you how to get here.

Marvin Lewis (to June): That was a Sunday and I had my Chrysler. I remember, I had just bought it. It was pouring, just a real storm.

Mrs. Lewis to her husband: You’re nuts to go.

ML to his wife: “I can’t reach these people by phone. They’re expecting me. He painted this painting, whatever it is. So I better pick it up.

ML (to June): I drove from Hillsborough over the Half Moon Bay Road, came down to Princeton, went to the grocery store and asked for Carol and McCracken.

Storeowner: Oh, you mean where the beatniks live? He walked outside the store and pointed. You see that promintory that comes out into the water? Pillar Point. That way? Right out on the end is a building, you’ll see its wrecked and they’re living in that wrecked building.

ML (to June) I drove and followed the coastline and went out there. Just as I arrived these great big dogs came running at me. One had red hair and was barking and two guys ran out, including Michael, calling off the dogs.

Marvin Lewis (to June): As I approached the house, I heard loud music playing and chickens were flying all over the place, roosters and goats walking around. There was even a goat inside the “house”. Then when I came inside this large room there were couples copulating all over the floor. I had to step over them.

In the middle of the floor there was a fire going in a brick kiln which they had built for Carol’s baby. Carol married McCracken. He made it legal. There was some guy laying on his back–I think with some gal in his arms and with his bare feet he was rocking the cradle while the baby was crying over the noise of the music and all of the scenes of animals and birds that were flying about in the building.

Michael McCracken (MM): Would you like to see the painting?

ML (to June) I went to see this painting and it was a sexual painting. The two wings were sexual, genital organs. It was a white angel and the rest of the picture was just black, inky black. It wasn’t a picture. It was a mural. It took up the whole wall.

ML to MM: I’m most grateful. I know the work you put into this but I don’t know how to say this–but I just don’t have any office space.

MM: What about your home?

ML: No way. Mostly my house is glass. I don’t have any wall space for paintings. I couldn’t get it in.

MM: I’m terribly disappointed–if you knew the hours I put in on this painting. Would you accept a smaller dark angel?

ML: Yes.

ML (to June) He went and got me a duplicate that was smaller and framed. I got into the car and dogs were barking at me until I drove away. I said goodbye to them and left. That was the last time I ever saw them. I don’t know what happened to the Dark Angle. My wife saw it and she let out a howl.

Mrs. Lewis to Mr. Lewis: My God, what are yoiu going to do with that?

ML (to June) We put it in the basement. Maybe it’s still there. I can’t remember if I gave it to my son or not–but it was something I was sure could have no value. I thought it had absolutely no appeal but I didn’t understand modern painting and I still don’t.

—————————

And that’s how my interview with Marvin Lewis ended–he gave me the best interview I’d ever had–of course he was a famous and successful attorney, an orator and entertainer. But I cannot think of anyone else I have met and interviewed who had a better story.

My adventure wasn’t over yet. I was still seeking more about Michael McCracken. I had a list of people to see and talk to but when I knocked on the door of the country house that belonged to Alice and her attorney husband, Roger, I confess I wasn’t sure where this was taking me.

Alice Kent lived in Marin County, in Kentfield, home of the local junior college. Yes, I guess the town was named after her. My memory is blurry on the details but it seems to me that her house was a big, old white two-story farmhouse style house with a porch around it.

Alice’s family were early settlers in Hawaii–her descendents came to the islands originally as missionaries but later they got very rich from the land they owned. (This was the second time I’d met someone with connections to the early Hawaiians–John Wickett a very eccentric, kind fellow, who gave me a pretty good interview and a great time in his eclectic house had been married to a Dole pineapple heiress)

I don’t know what propelled me to follow-up on these interviews–the search for the beatniks of Princeton-by-the-Sea. To go places where I didn’t know what was going to happen, where I didn’t know the people I was going to interview…there was a small element of danger to it. Maybe that’s what enticed me.

When Roger Kent answered the door of the Kent’s home in Marin, I knew I was safe but I still wondered what this was going to be about. Roger didn’t look well. His skin color was gray–I saw him for a few brief seconds before his wife Alice appeared to greet me.

[Roger Kent was an attorney with strong political connections, counting Richard Nixon as one of his clients].

In my mind Alice was small and gray and wearing comfortable clothing. She took me upstairs right away. We walked into a small room where she pointed out a sandbox scene on the floor. In it were figurines that had come from a glass China cabinet in the corner. This was Jungian therapy, she told me.

Every day she opened the China cabinet, selected objects that seemed appropriate and put them in the sandbox. I guess she sat on the floor and interacted with them.

After that brief introduction to Alice Kent’s Jungian therapy we sat down and tried to talk about Michael McCracken–a man she didn’t know much about. But maybe that was because Alice was actually going to be a link to another person (and that would turn out to be Rosalind Sharpe, who had strong connections to Big Sur).

…More to come…
———

A Night At Mr. Wickett’s

“Hey, Hey, Hey
“It’s The House of Mirrors
“Alive, Alive, Alive
“And on the Inside
“All the Wonders of Mother Nature”
Harleign, 1979

One day in the 1970s I was visiting the Channing Pollocks, a magician friend and his gorgeous Chinese wife in Moss Beach –and they were entertaining another magician friend of theirs, Harleign (who was also nicknamed “Torchy�).

Photo: The magician, Harlan (in the foreground, unidentified woman behind him) at Channing Pollock’s house in Moss Beach overlooking the Pacific.

Harlan was very different from Channing, who was extremely handsome and sophisticated and self-confident. Harlan was wearing a green windbreaker jacket and his hair was very blond but and there was a humility about me.

We got to talking and Harlan asked if I’d drive him home to San Francisco. And that’s how I met John Wickett, an eccentric and very kind man.

I was feeling accommodating and a drive to the City sounded delightful. And I was feeling adventurous so I drove Harlan home to 2721 Pacific Ave in Pacific Heights, an exclusive neighborhood and at the time John Wickett’s four-story house, or better yet, it was a three-story museum that John had filled with art and paintings and fabrics, lots of colorful fabrics.

I don’t think there was an inch of that house, of any of the walls, that weren’t covered with something beautiful to look at.

On the way to San Francisco Harlan prepped me on the house in which he lived—“it’s unusual,� he said. “You should come in and spent a little time looking around.� Understatements, both.

The invitation was a real gift.

From the street the house on Pacific Avenue was majestic, with classic green and white trim and an American flag flying in the breeze. This part of San Francisco, known as Pacific Heights was among the ritz-iest real estate in the City. Foreign embassies and homes of the very rich surrounded John Wickett’s four-story house–making his choice of living here more fascinating.

Sure, I was impressed—but not really prepared for what awaited me inside. It was a menagerie. Harlan’s landlord (still not known to me) had a fetish for buying antiques in big lot quantities.

His taste was definitely eccentric and eclectic—is there a contradiction in that? Then that’s good, that’s John Wickett’s style.

Afterward what I recalled most vividly was “the seal� from the old Playland at the Beach. It was a seal with a ball balanced on his nose and when a button was pushed the ball twirled on the seal’s nose.

All four floors were covered with tapestries. I could smell the musty odor of old fabrics and rugs and material the second I set foot in the house. It smelled dusty and musty.

Harlan took me on a tour—and he told John Wickett that I was there. I remember John, a trim looking older man who moved around the house fast, founding down the stairs two at a time to make my acquaintance. He was just the nicest, sweetest guy. Authentic.

His way of speaking was just as fast as his manner of getting around the house. The thoughts in his mind must have bounced around and all came tumbling out sometimes bumping into one another. Maybe he had a stutter, too.

“Isn’t she nice?� Harlan said to John. Harlan also had a stutter that came and went.

The house overwhelmed me and I visited every single room. There were objects from all over the world everywhere, even “femur bones� and “monks skulls� that formed a musical instrument—furs flung in bathtubs, fluffy big pillows, historical costumes hung on walls—and most memorably, in one bathroom there was gynecologist’s table complete with the stirrups.

Some of the rooms were big—one was called “the sunny roomâ€? where a couple of musicians from the San Francisco Symphony lived– and there was the “little roomâ€?, the “guest roomâ€? which was lavishly decorated with a bed bigger than a king size one covered with thick tapestries.

The ceilings hadn’t been forgotten either. There were odd looking lamp fixtures and shades which reflected artistic patters. On the top floor where astro turf the hot tub was put in place by a crane. On the top floor, on the outside deck, there were spectacular views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Time passed.

I was working a museum when an order for books arrived along with a check signed by John Wickett. I felt a kind of excitement, but we didn’t have the books he ordered in stock. That gave me the opportunity of writing him a short note that said, in part, “do you still remember me, I was the one who….�

A day or two later there was a call for me at the museum, Mr. Wickett was on the line. Of course, he remembered me, “How are you and your lovely husband?�

[I remember this part of the conversation word-for-word because—and I felt very good about this—“I don’t have a husband anymore.� ]

The era of divorce had snared me in its own type of trap. This was the 1970s and “everybody was doing it.�

I am not saying that, in the end, I did not do the right thing. I did the right thing.

When Wickett called I was feeling euphoric, more than happy to be free, to be out of a legal arrangement that wasn’t working out.

Me on the roof of John Wickett’s Pacific Ave “mansion” in San Francisco.

Anyway, that was that…we chit chatted some more and said good bye.

A week or two later, John Wickett called the museum again. It was late on a Friday afternoon and I think I was the only one there. Frankly, he sounded a bit drunk, but who knows. He suggested that I move into his house.

“I’m trying to ’sell you’,” he said. He gave me all the reasons why I should move into the house and the first one was “no rent”, then “t.v.s all over the house”, “the hot tub” that wasn’t there yet but had been ordered, “the video equipment”, “all the parties” and more.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him, knowing I wasn’t moving anywhere.

[Note: I'm still working/editing this story]

Interview With John Wickett, 9-9-1979…Athis home on Pacific Ave, San Francisco

Photo: John Wickett

[Note: Pullout quote from the interview: Every time they wanted to prosecute me, I said, "Sure, just send me to jail." They said, "John, we can't send you to jail. I'm on the Boy Scouts Board with you, I'm on the YMCA board with you. You're about the most helpful citizen in the county. You've helped my elections--all my elections. What are the papers going to say? They'll jsut make it a big joke."]

John Wickett (JW): These are some thoughts from John Wickett who was involved with the Skyline back of Woodside…some acreage 4400 acres which I acquired in 1955 and 56 as a real estate speculation–investment and then got into a sawmill, had many buildings with the sawmill–did some intensive logging which I since regret. It spoiled lots of beauty but opened up lots of views and many roads and made it possible for us to get around the property which was not otherwise property.

JW: Anyhow, the sawmill closed in about 1961, had some caretakers, a few people living around there. One little incident: I had acres of machinery and equipment that I used to go to auctions and acquire, so I had all kinds of lumber left over and almost hundreds of tons of miscellaneous stuff I’d acquired at auctions–building materials, all kinds of steel equipment, construction equipment from various buildings that were put up.

JW: One day I had a real surprise, though. Someone told me about this wonderful equipment that was available up on Skyline. It was being sold off for all you can load for only $100 per hour. A minute over and you had to pay another $100. They said, ‘Well, John, you’ve got to get in on that. You’re just going to have a field day cuz you can get so much good stuff. So finally I found out where it was and it was my caretaker selling off my belongings (laughter). All I could take for $100 an hour.

JW: That made me realize that unless I had two or three caretakers who hopefull wouldn’t get together and I had them around the clock it would be no use. Finally I fired the caretakers and people were told to come up and take whatever they wanted.

JW: That’s when my relaxed days started.

JW: The so-called “flower children day” on the property started in about 1964 as a result of attending an opera performance of what was called the “Floating Lotus Opera Co. over in Berkeley. It was a far-out group, perhaps Buddhist-Hindu, I don’t know what, but bells, decorations and Indian trappings, rather not too scientific or perfect but very relaxed and they had all kinds of musical instruments and Tibetan horns and lots of atmosphere.

JW: I attended that opera there and enjoyed meeting it and the woman I was with seemed to know them well–and I was particularly interested because I had just acquired a 14-room pad, as I call it, in San Francisco…and I was wondering how to decorate it.

JW: I was thinking of just making it kind of a hippie decoration but with all these Indian trappings, I suddenly got inspired and also my 14-room pad was above the “Baghdad”, a belly-dancing nightclub.

JW: I thought, gee, this is interesting and the woman wanted to know if I would like to meet the performers backstage. And I enjoyed meeting them. I said, gee, you’ve got some far-out decorations, instead of hippie, I think this is more fun. I just liked them. They seemed so nice personally.

JW: Maybe you’d like to come over and have a rehearsal session or sit around and have some change of pace for you. I know I could get some ideas from you and I’d like to take advantage of you coming over.

JW: Their whole trouple came over on Sundays often, stayed for many hours and the conversation came up that I had several thousands acres back of Woodside, including the top of Kings Mountain where I oculd see both the Bay and the ocean–particularly I had this 70-acre meadow surrounded by big, virgin Redwoods overlooking the ocean–and they might enjoy having a day or a weekend if they wanted to bring their sleeping bags.

JW: They were inspired. [They said] We can dance and play our instruments and parade all over, through the woods and through the meadows and yes, yes, yes. They went down there and seemed to enjoy themselves and several asked if they could live there, practice there and go back and I said, ‘Sure”, everybody else seems to go there, so why don’t you?

JW: Just fine. Several asked if they could live there so I started having these talented musicians, just extremely nice people, living on the property. At about the same time another important event came up–and that was meeting a James Maggio. I stand to be corrected on that. He was a fine pen and ink artist and also did some posters for rock bands and so on. I met him at a party at the house of Margo St. James who is well known personally in the San Francisco area.

JW: She told me I should get hold this Jim Maggio because he might have some drawings that might fit in the way I was starting to decorate the place and thought I would enjoy meeting him so she arranged for him to meet me. Liked him very much. He heard about the property and wanted to go down, too. So he met the Floating Lotus, liked them, and asked if he could live on the property, too.

(Photo: June and unidentified man on the roof of John Wickett’s San Francisco mansion.Photo by Suzanne Meek).

JW: It turned out Sandy [aka Jim Maggio?] had lots of friends. He was an inspired guy, lots of leadership. Like the others he liked to “trip” and smoke and lived on the property. In very short order I had at least 70 people living on the property, living in these deserted sawmill buildings, shop equipment buildings, warehouses. They were all over the place.

JW: The D.A.–some of the neighbors were complaining a bit that we didn’t have proper sanitary facilities and so on. One neighbor complained–where all this “happening” was about a half-mile away–but she complained that she’d seen men urinate on the trees. Anyhow, she appeared before the Planning Commission against me and I made the problem of embarassing her, that perhaps she must have been trespassing–1/2 mile inside the property to see all this happening and she may merely be a Peeping Tom (laughter). She didn’t like that and she insisted the assistant attorney’s office prosecugte me.

JW: Eventually they put me on the spot and gave me six months suspended sentence against having people liver there and in the buildings because it wasn’t zoned for communal living. I continued to have the people there. The D.A. and the sheriff–they were all problems cuz the sheriff used to say I was the landowner in the county who wouldn’t let him hunt on my property. The County Manager was also one of my closest friends and I wouldn’t permit hunting there because I liked having deer around.

JW: Every time they wanted to prosecute me, I said, “Sure, just send me to jail.” They said, “John, we can’t send you to jail. I’m on the Boy Scouts Board with you, I’m on the YMCA board with you. You’re about the most helpful citizen in the county. You’ve helped my elections–all my elections. What are the papers going to say? They’ll just make it a big joke.”

JW: So, I kept letting them live there–but they called me now and then cuz they got “pushed” by this owman who I’d embarassed, to do something. Eventually I appreciated their situation. A couple of the main buildings–I said you’re just going to have to live elsewhere–you can’t be so evident, so they started building little, separate buildings off in the woods where they wouldn’t be found. One of the problems was they didn’t realize I was as “relaxed” as I was and they were hooping I’d just thought the had gone away and whenever I’d be on the property, walking around near them, someone would get me and start talking about something in the opposite direciton. Eventually I found all the buildings.

JW: They were spectacularly innovative designs and …for example one of them was a home with chains going out so everything cantilevered like a drawbridge. All these platforms going out.

JW: Another one was perhaps the most spectacular, the one Ken Whiting built. Five-stories high, a treehouse, 50 feet above the ground. That story I think you should get form Ken Whiting…He also had put in an elevator and a suspended cable sliding deal to it but had those taken down because they were so hazardous (laugher), afraid somebody would really get killed and the suits and so on.

JW: Too many people were getting up around there, getting to be a problem–all the sightseers wandering to see the property and the treehouse and so on. Also there was a large article in the “Palo Alto Times” about the treehouse which Ken Whiting would probably have a copy of–gives dates and probably some information on it.

JW: This Jim Maggio took on the name of Sandy Castle. I now refer to Jim Mazzio as Sandy Castle because that’s the way everyone got to know him and most of them there all used assumed names. Ummn, I think they just wanted to forget their past. A lot of these poeple Sandy brought in were from top-notch families from the East Coast, affluent, wealthy families. But it was the time of the Flower Children and they were drifting out West and they didn’t want to embarass or get involved with the parents.

JW: Some of them weren’t wearing very much and they were growing “Victory” gardens and a beautiful, relaxed flower child life of existence there. Sandy Castle is somebody who should definitely be tracked down. I believe he is managing a rock group in Southern Calif. He comesup here occasionally. He can definitely be reached. He lived on the property for several years. He got to be..he manaaged Neil Young’s–Crosby, Stash, Crosby, Nash (laughter), excuse me, Young and….He managed their group and Neil Young got some adjoining property, collected old cars, got to be a close friend of my son, Jim Wickett, who started to live on the property.

JW: Oh yeah . How my son Jim got there. I had all these people on the property, and what to do. I was being pressured by the D.A.’s office. My son, who was going to Menlo College at the time–this was in the late 60s. I said, Jim, for summer vacation, why don’t you perhaps live up on the property? We’ve got all these people htere and I think you’d just find it interesting being up and around there. You can be helpful and get things a little bit organized and under control and keep an eye out for things. We’ve got all these materials that people are starting to build their houses with which I’m happy with and they’re cutting things up for art works. Maybe you could just supervise a bit so something that shouldn’t be cut up won’t be cut up.

JW: He spent a summer there and at the end of summer I said, I think you’re learning enough and getting experience and you’re so valuable being around up there. I think if you missed a quarter of school wouldn’t do any harm. You’d learn more than if you were in school. You don’t particularly know what you want to major in anyhow so…

JW: He stayed there, gradually started cleaning up the property. Getting things organized. At that time we got into the art world. We had a steel forge, glass blowing, a pottery kiln, silkscreening. About every arts/crafts there–a very talented, skilled gorup of artists started. Lots of babies, children around. Lots and lots of cats. Lots of construction.

JW: The sawmill was being made into–they kept ripping up parts of it and using the wood to make little houses inside of houses. The DA keeping after me for the building code–nothing done with the building permits. My son began organizing, cutting down some of the less talented ones, people arriving in old school buses and camping around the place. It started becoming too much. Then the motorcycles started coming (laughter) cuz we had all this land and some days we had up to 2,000 motorcylists running around the property.

JW: We had maybe 2,000-3,000 spectators. Cars parked, oh, everywhere. The motorcyclists began really eroding the property, making gullies, trenches. The meadows criss-crossed with ruts and the grass wasn’t growing properly. Erosing was setting in.

JW:My son, Jim, said, ‘Dad, things have gone too far here. Let’s get a little practical’– so we put up some signs in motorcycle shops…we want the property to regain itself and thanking them for their cooperation. We put a sign on the property saying “No Trespassing: Gun Patrol Survivors Will Be Prosecuted To The Full Extent Of The Law”. That was an attempt to be funny. My son set up a non-profit corporation called Starr Hill Academy For Anything. Used big sawmill blades as signs, converted the twin band, resaw mill into his private home, had some of the artists decorating, fixing it up–ended up being quite a nice hut. Now has a hot tub, modern bathroom.

Photo: John Wickett’s son, Jim, sitting on an old piece of sawmill equipment.

JW: I gave him a firepole I bought at an auction from the Roaring 20s where the girls used to slide down. He had that slide down into his bedroom. He started eliminating people. The Starr Hill Academy started to do some real good–less of the hippie element around and he started having lots of schoolchildren. We had several classes going up there. School district was paying us .75 a student coming up there so students could see the remains of a sawmilla and what the outdoor life could be.

JW: We got into the juvenile drug offenders. These 15 10-year-old kids on drugs that were sent to Hillcrest Juvenile Hall from San Mateo Co. My son Jim can tell you all the history on that. They used to come up and work for two days. These 15 year-old kids on drugs that were sent to Hillcrest Juvenile Hall from San Mateo Co. My son Jim can tell you all the history on that. They used to come on Saturdays and Sundays as a work furlough program instead of staying in juvenile hall.

JW: They could come up and work for two days. They were to do clean-up work…There were other visitors who came up and they would work, too, so we ended up with a several acre victory garden and they fenced it off because the deer seemed to love all the vegetables–and these friends would come up and work, too, so nobody would know who was a drug offender and who wasn’t. We used to have rock bands that would come up and play on weekends.

JW: Everybody was working to music–practically dancing while working. I don’t know how efficient the work was–but it was a good, healthy thing.

JW: So my son got very interested in that and the artwork got less and less. He got more serious about what was going on on Skyline. He became president of the Skyline Improvement Assn., very active with the Kings Mtn Fire District. We ended up having one of the fire trucks down on the property in return for maintaining it. We had enough people around…

JW: I used to have 17 four-wheel drive vehicles, part of the sawmill operations. They were restoring some of the trucks and using them and keeping fire trucks available…I had bulldozers they could use to keep some of the roads open…With the water board, the sewer district, as he got older, he got more serious, perhaps knowing something about law could be very helpful….to compete with problems of the D.A., wanting to smooth things down.

JW: I mentioned earlier that I was a friend of the county sheriff–my son got a deputy sheriff’s badge which gave him a little control over the outsiders…Eventually, he couldn’t say no to the people, but some of the buildings…and he got back into the natural things. A lot of the sawmill buildings got wrecked and people robbing them for materials for building other houses. He got embarassed the way some of the buildings were looking–nothing was very ship-shape anymore. Maybe the only way to kick some people out was to remove some of the buildings that were beginning to be eyesores–It’s an alibi for people not staying there because he didn’t have a building to live in anymore.

JW: He (his son) got more into the ecology deal–returning things to their natural state. The buildings started disappearing. To help keep things going–we had these acres of miscellaneous things I’d acquired at auctions and various sawmills that were going out of business. We started selling off equipment which gave him some income.

JW: No equipment around to convert into more houses and lean-tos and looked better from the ecology standpoint. With equipment off the acres–this stuff covered acres and acres–stuff that was acquired. He plowed the land, planted grass seed on everything. Everything began returning to the pristine state. Then one day I showed up and no big sawmill buildings anymore. He tore that down which broke my heart because I had about 1/3 of an acre covered with this building which I also thought would be a good rain shelter.

JW: We had a large barbecue–big company picnics up there and shelter if it got to be a rainy day. But we had so many people around for so long my son gradually tiring of the responsibility and these crowds around. I got so relaxed I used to tell anybody, sure, go up there, have your company picnics, make yourselves at home. There used to be some enormous beer busts up there and whatnot.

JW: I thought the property was so beautiful, why not have any and everybody up there? Nothing’s been stolen. I figure I couldn’t be hurt anymore…My son had no privacy of his own–everybody asking him questions. He should learn something about the law so he went to law school–stayed at the top of his class, took is bar exam, graduated this (1979?) summer, is now waiting for his bar announcement at the end of this October–so he has some free time.

JW: I never did live up there but for years I had four-wheel drive vehicles which I put over a 100,000 miles running up and down. We had over a 100 miles of roads on the property. I used to roar off everywhere. Could tell you lots of stories about four-wheel drive vehicles.

JW: The head of the west territory for Jeeps wanted to see the property, to test out a jeep wrecking car with a boom on it because we were turning over trucks occasionally, and soon, he brought out this new wrecking truck and he said take your car and we’ll do some things. Evidentally, I had more experience than needed and his wrecking car had so many problems from saving itself from getting in trouble that I kept rescuing the wrecking vehicle.

JW: At the end of the day, he said, what do you think about it? Do you want to take it? And I said it’s such a wreck I wouldn’t give you a $100 for your truck (laughter). He thought that was kind of funny. Brand new vehicle ruined. But we had a great day. He said he never had so much fun in his life and learned lots about what a car can and can’t do and mainly what a four-wheel is capable of and how it can rescue itself. Through the years up there I thought of myself as an absolute authority on how to rescue oneself.

JW: I used to carry block and tackle. I had the wench on the front and a rear vehicle so I rescued myself in every direction if there were no trees. I could use pulleys to rescue myself. I had chains with many spikes and I could put these spikes through the holes in the chain which would then hold in the road so I could rescue myself.

End of this 1979 interview with John Wickett

—————————————————————–

Random Notes from an interview (1979) with John Wickett

Sandy Castle is Jim Mazzio or Maggio? Pen & ink artist who did posters for rock bands.

JW saw a mountain lion in the Purisima for about five minutes. Walked forward/backward. Excited by seeing it. Someone said “kill it�.

From 1955-1975: 4400 acres.

Floating Lotus Opera Company or Garden Lotus Opera Co — Berkeley

1964: Flower children on property

John Wickett: 1949, President Menlo Park-Atherton Board of Realtors, 1946-47, Pres. Rotary Club of Redwood City

Always liked color and people. Hasn’t had job for 15 years.

JW�s “so busy doing nothing. I don’t have to do anything.� Doesn’t go to bars. Lived in a synagogue for a year (big parties).

1800 people at Twin Peaks. People come to him.
Involved in Haight Asbury 10 years ago.
TwinPeaks –never had house locked.
got lots of kids on right track.

Lived about Baghdad 5 years. 14 rooms. Had top floor decorated like? 7 rooms perpetual crash pad. Bought surplus war blankets.
Set alarm for 1:30-2:30 a.m.–people came in: Janis Joplin, Morrison of the Doors. Had dance floor, jukebox. Sometimes 1 person, sometimes 200-300 people.

At the Woodlake Apartments in San Mateo: JW known as “the mayorâ€?. 2,000 people there. Then he got Melvin Belli’s place. Eric “Big Daddyâ€? Norde loaned him furnishings for (can’t read the word) Norde had on Haight. Let’s have an orgy–everybody’s take off clothes–never knew what would happen.

(”Big Daddy” Norde wanted Starr Hill to be called “Naked Acres”)

Too many parties on Twin Peaks–neighbors hassled–too many women–some gay guys took men–Rock bands. People on street had trouble with the partying. Police started coming around. Word out heavy parties going on.

John W. never took anything–barely smokes dope, makes smoke rings. Took some LSD (4 times). 3rd time a woman doctor gave it to him. 4th time New Years Eve. Doesn’t drink hard liquor, just wine. Likes to remember everybody’s name.

Wanted to experience life and gets as much–likes to learn.

Square background. Republican. Believes in capitalist system. Been on both sides “best psychiatrist around.” Had to go on completely different tangent. Had done everything in square life. Never hurt anybody, never took advantage, 100 per cent honesty, absolute trust.

Shows so much trust others don’t have the nerve to take advantage of him

“story of friend who was really a burglar who was going to rip him off on Lower Broadway”.

Open & friendly, overboard & everything’s out.

Born June 16, a Gemini.

10 Years on SF Debutante Cotillion.

…More…

True Story

To this day I find it unbelievable, what happened that day….

I was working at Time magazine in downtown San Francisco, on the 25th floor of the Shell Building, and every morning when I arrived, I took the elevator up to the 24th, checked in with Vince, the gay receptionist, who sat on a kind of raised dais. I picked up my phone messages and walked upstairs.

I loved my job. I loved the people I worked with.

Like me, they were writers and if you didn’t know, writers can be a pretty strange breed. “Good strange�. One of them barked like a dog when he was feeling great; he might have had a good interview or met a deadline. Another one was hyper, linking silly words together…

On the 25th floor you’d find the news bureaus for Time and People magazines. People had a tiny office and the woman bureau chief was a tough bird who reminded me more of a strict teacher. When you broke through that cold exterior, she was a very caring lady.[this screams out for an example…]

The business offices were located on the floor below, run by secretaries who rarely smiled and wore severely tailored clothing, with hair was tied back in buns—they had been there forever, surely outliving a long series of bosses. But when they ran out of space one-man advertising offices for People and Money magazines opened on the editorial floor.

I didn’t usually talk to the secretaries on the 24th floor.There was little chance we would bump into each other—and, besides, I was too busy; besides, we had nothing in common except for the selectric (typewriters) we used.

But one morning I was drawn across the floor to a corner office: the People magazine office. Or maybe I had a reason to be there. Maybe I knew a temp was filling in for the regular secretary who was on vacation.

I was wearing my glasses when I looked straight at the temp and said, “Hello, my name is June Morrall, and I work over there,� (pointing) in the direction of my office.

She said her name was Judy. She was warm and friendly and we chatted about little things. I told her I lived in Half Moon Bay when, suddenly—abruptly– she stopped the conversation dead with “June, YOU KNOW ME! Don’t you recognize me?�

At first I was horrified. I didn’t know who she was. We weren’t connecting.

That was the first phase. But this was a fast moving conversation and I quickly moved in phase 2.

She didn’t look or sound like anybody I knew. Who knows what she thought. If she thought I knew her maybe she thought I was playing a game. Lying, even.

Then it was all over.

“I’m Judy Howard�, she said.

Oh my God.

How would you feel if you were standing there talking to a once close friend—one who, when you were young teenagers had gotten drunk– and she tumbled down the steps of your house causing what she called “a fat lip�. What if you hadn’t seen her for almost 20 years and she recognized you but you didn’t recognize her.

I never did find out if she had the advantage of knowing my name. But knowing my name wouldn’t have tipped her off because my last name changed when I got married. She must have recognized me.

I did not recognize Judy.

Not at first, after she told me who she was. I looked harder and then I saw that it was Judy–how could I have not seen it?

Here’s Judy (and me flaunting the cigareete, showing some attitude at a restaurant after a Time magazine holiday lunch–you notice we’re both wearing Christmas red).

But that wasn’t the end of the surprises: Judy then said, “Did you know Lorrie Perry calls here, too? She works for one of the big ad agencies.�

Here was another friend from high school, from years and years ago.

I was stunned. Judy said, “We’ll all have to get together after work sometime.�

Here’s the thing: the magazine bureau office was not that big. What were the chances that I would encounter two old friends from high school there at the same time?

Photo: Lorrie, at left, with me at a Time magazine event. You can tell I’m not happy because that smile is way too smiley to be real.
———————————————————

“Don’t ‘obsess’,� Maria advised.

To obsess, I reflected. It’s a dangerous verb.

————————————————-

When I went to San Jose State I rented a two-bedroom apartment at 555 So. 8th Street. It stood next door to a police fraternity.

The way I got the apartment was a bit of luck: I was walking up the stairs to some building on campus where info on apts and houses for rent was posted. When I reached the top step I noticed a young woman with dark hair posting an apartment for rent. She smiled and asked if I was looking for a place to live.

Boy was i relieved. She had gone to Lincoln High in San Francisco, the same school I recently graduated from. But she was older and about to graduate from San Jose State. There was another roommate. Neither of them stayed around on weekends–they both headed back home to San Francisco. I knew I wouldn’t be doing much of that.

Would I be interested in inheriting the apartment?

You bet I would. And I did, I rented the apartment.

It was impossible to ignore the guys at the cop fraternity, and one of them called Joe, was an amateur photographer. Really. Here’s one of the [Janis Joplin-like] photos he took of me–

Fragment: My Lawyer Is Missing

Scene I:

An old 4-door once white Mercedes lumbers down a dusty, rocky road—the entrance to a Sacramento Valley ranch. It is the middle of summer. The sun is setting. The air feels humid.

An attractive brown-haired 40-ish woman is driving the car. The ashtray is overflowing with cigarettes. She is chain smoking.

She is talking animatedly with a dark bearded, rotund man in his late 40s. He is wearing a black curly wig and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He is wearing faded denims and a checkered cowboy shirt.

Woman
Are you sure you want to do this? I mean—leave everything behind? Your job? Your friends? Even your daughter? It’s going to be a mess.

Man’s speech
Yeah, I’m sure. You know, I haven’t worked in four months—oh, I was went to the office but all I did was sit there and look at the crap that accumulated on my desk. Sometimes I even took calls. Even my secretary slacked off—how many did I go through?

As they drove toward the farmhouse the car’s tires struggle with the unpaved road. The car shakes.

Man continues speech
They could hardly make it into the office on time. I finally had to fire one, the other quit and the only one I trusted got pregnant. She wasn’t even there at the end—still on leave. The only thing I enjoyed were the long lunches with friends—bottles of wine, prime rib, lots of prime rib in very dark restaurants. None of them even suspected—that I was bored. And I don’t want to be bored anymore. Life is just not supposed to be like that. I want to start all over. I want to change my life. Do something else, something completely different. I know that I do not want to practice law anymore.

Woman laughs

I know what you want to do—and what all of your friends are going to do. They’re going to be flying to Fayettville, Arkansas to see if you’re a fry cook in one of the coffee shops.

Man joins in, laughing and his face lights up

Well, I can tell you now that I am not going to Fayettville. Although it’s true, I’ve dreamed about it a lot—going back to my hometown.

Woman

You know—I don’t think you should tell me where you’re going. If I know—and all your friends are calling me—I might break down and tell. Even your daughter—she’s going to be with me and she’s going to want to know. I want to be able to tell her that I just don’t know where you are.

Man

That sounds fine. I wonder how many 45-year-old men just drop their entire lives and disappear? I wonder if somewhere somebody keeps count. I wonder if it’s common? More common than we suspect? I believe there’s more to life and I feel it now more than ever.

My Lawyer Is Missing, Part II of II

The old white Mercedes stops in front of a faded hacienda style farmhouse with a brown tile roof. Looking around it seems that the house stands in the middle of nowhere. Man and woman get out of the car. Man pulls a heavy suitcase from the trunk. Arm in arm they walk toward the house.

Man
Well, we’ve got some details to clear up before I go—and I really need a drink.

They step inside the house which despite its down at heel outside appearance is expensively furnished inside. The man has never been here before and when he finds the kitchen he checks out the stove. It meets with his approval. He walks into the living room where the woman is already sitting, opens his suitcase which reveals that it is filled with bottles of wine. He pulls a bottle out, holds it up, before removing the seal. The woman produces two wine glasses and they toast one another.

Man takes a long sip

Man’s speech

I’ve run out of options. I didn’t tell you but when I was in New Orleans last month, I disappeared for a couple of days. It felt great. Sort of gave me a taste of what it would be like for nobody to know where I was. I drove to Pensacola, Florida—checked into a motel on the beach. That night I planned to kill myself.

Woman puts down wine glass and listens closely.

Man takes another sip of wine.

Man’s speech continues

I waited until midnight when I thought nobody would be around. I put my robe on and walked down to the beach. Then I realized that the pier was lit up. I would be bathed in light in the ocean. I didn’t realize that I would have to walk down this lighted pier to get to the ocean but I headed through the lights anyway. I walked into the ocean and I started swimming. I was going to drown myself……..That was my plan. But everything fell apart when I felt a slippery fish brush past my legs.

Woman
Fish?

Man
Yeah, you know I couldn’t take the thought of all the fish swimming around my dead body. I waffled, I aborted the plan. See, I’ve also been very worried about botching up my suicide attempt. You know, failing and ending up a vegetable or a severely mutilated person. I don’t want to do that. So I pretty much finally gave up the suicide idea.

…End of fragment….
=========================
Interview (by phone) with jazz drummer Benny Barth
Subject: Pete Douglas & the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society (BDDS)
August 10, 1979

Benny Barth (BB): At the BDDS “Musicians are treated more as artists. There’s more of a European attitude. People come to hear you play, not to drink. Makes you feel much more responsible to them.�

BB: “I would trust Pete Douglas more than anybody that worked in music. I hold him in high esteem. He wouldn’t take advantage of me.�

BB: “I’d play [at the BDDS] for no money ife he wanted me to play there.�

BB: “He’s [Pete Douglas] right there, has such a good time listening to the music. He’s mopping the floor, the janitorial duties.�

BB: The BBDS “is an ideal spot, ideal organization.�

-End-
———————————————————–

Interview with Bennet Kilpack, sociology teacher, resident of Half Moon Bay, September 1979

Bennet Kilpack (BK): Little background on the coast may be helpful. It has been, historically, a low income area. No longer true, but that’s the history. So it attracted a lot of people who were migrants, who were farmers, who were on welfare. We had a tremendous amount of people who were not emplooyed or underemployed. Then it became–I’d say–probably in the 1950s, maybe earlier–a bedroom community.

BK:Occupational people discovered it. They could find housing that was reasonable. They could get a good-sized view lot. So they chose to live here and commute to the City or whatever. Pete Douglas was one of those people. He worked in San Mateo when I first me him and commuted by choice. He could buy a nice piece of property–which he did, obviously–at a modest price. That was sort of the nature of the area.

BK: It has a very strong, very proud Portuguese population, very strong Spanish population. Many have been here for years …..

BK: We’ve also shared the point that a lot of people come to the cost who are on downers. They’re depressed. That’s when they come over here as a way of getting away and finding something–I’m not even sure they know what they’re looking for–but it is as escape, a place to get away that doesn’t change that much. The ocean is always there. It does attract people who are on downers.

BK: I used to be a partner of the Miramar Inn. I had great anxiety–the palce was a mess–I worked one shift and that was it. I thought, God, eight hours will never go by and I had all these people come in. My nostalgia was–I tended bar way back in the 1940s in Oregon and it was fun. We had a ski resort. And I thought it would be like that.

BK: It was depressing as hell. I could barely stick out the one shift. I kept saying what in the hell am I doing here…I don’t feel like these crazy, sick people here. Then it flashed back to what Pete [Douglas] had said several years earier that the coast attracts a lot of people who are depressed, on downers, and it sure was evident in that scene at the bar.

BK: In talking to the bartenders later on that worked there when I didn’t–I chose not to–they confirmed that. I think that’s been part of the mystique of the Bach–that it’s not just the music. It’s a place that has been there, it has not sold out commercially. Pete’s had many chances to go commercial and have a professional group come in and have a bar set up and get a license, and all that. He’s resisted it. It probably would have been financially quite rewarding. But it would have attracted a different population, changed the environment radically.

BK: Peope can go there whether they’re on an upper or a downer and expect a certain kind of consistency. I think that’ s part of its success. The coastside is unique in terms of living here. I’ve been a fan of the coastside since the 1950s–but only live here since 1969.

BK: Like this street where I live now. I have a very traditional family from the Phillippines. I have done a little classical conditioning with the grandmother. She’s got very bad vision. I always wave when I go by. Now it’s been ten years. She’s finally waving. Laughter. And she smokes cigars. And she’s just great.

BK: I have a neighbor who’s a very fine artist and one of the early drop-outs–partial drop-outs–Boyd Keffeler, who has chosen not to work full time. He and his wife both. They’ve done a variety of things to maintain a simple lifestyle because that’s the way they chose to live.

BK: On the other end of the spectrum, the fire chief lives on the next block. That’s sort of the “straight� block. Grove Street. All the homes have very manicured yards. There’s always been a feeling–that I felt very strongly–of very much a respect for everyone’s privacy in a protective community, kind of ethos. That people do look after each other.

BK: Like my neighbor here who is no long there. He repaired elevators, a very specialized field. He had a company truck. He was gone for a weekend. Someone tried to remove the truck. I guess it would be logical to call the police. But I didn’t. I went down when they left and took the rotor (?) out of the truck. They came back and were obviously curious and they came up and confronted me and I told them that the truck was on his property and it belonged there–I wasn’t going to say anymore. They threatened me with the police. I said, fine, by all means. The police did come. I didn’t realize that one can go on ne’s property to take a company vehicle and they were from the company he worked for. But I had no way of knowing that. Laughter.

BK: I was asked to put back the rotor. This was an example of the kind of things we do. Like my neighbor here when I’m gone. They sense it if I don’t tell them. We feed each other’s pets if we’re gone. Yet, I’ve never felt anyone invading my privacy. I can be as social or anti-social as I choose to be. That’s part of the charm of this community. The beatnik era is one I can talk about fairly objectively because I wasn’t that caught up in it, yet I was very exposed to it and in it in an interesting kind of way.

…End….

Note: Interview with Bennet Kilpack, September 24, 1979

Pete Douglas: “relaxed, atypical probabion officer�

The Ebb Tide had three stools, hamburger stand–itinerant artists, lawyers= diversity

Corvette stopped by–listened to music

Mirada Road: frontage road

Stanislaus Richter–Russian pianist, favorite of Pete Douglas, heavy classical, direct scores

“kind of flow we don’t experience anymore�

Intimacy, drop in quality–lost

PD & Pat lived in pump house, children in cafe

Last of beatniks

Read poetry, drank wine, last of beatniks from San Francisco drifted down, political discussions

One beatnik wore a calvary outfit with sabre, real sabre

Kilpack promoted Illegitimate Theater in Palo Alto, put on show at the Bach, took requests from the audience.

Encourged Douglas to go beyond jazz

Kilpack first met Pete in 1955. Pete never said “hello� or “goodbye�.
———————————-
Taped Interview with Pete Douglas, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Miramar Beach: June 7, 1975. During transcription some of the words were left out, misspelled or incorrect probably because they couldn’t be heard clearly.

June: What was the name of this place when you first came?

Pete Douglas (PD): I called it the Ebb Tide Cafe. That was the little building, the way it was used. Grandma Treadwell had her two sons build it back in 1946, ‘47. They were going to go two stories. They built the foundation big enough for a ten-story building. There’s probably more beer bottles and wine bottles in the concrete than concrete.

PD: Anyway they got it built and they leased it. Far as I remember, that’s what I’m told, not long after that Buster Westfault’s mother–the Westfault family’s been out here a long time–Westfault’s mother opened up a taco place or something–that was in the 40s. And then somewhere in the early 1950s the most colorful, successful owners of the place–was Gladys Klingenberger and her husband Gerald. They ran it and it was packed.

PD: But all they ahd was beer and whiskey under the counter–and there was an old coke box sitting behind the bar where the beer was and many tim es Gladys would be passed out behind the bar. And people would come in and pick beer out of the coke box. And in the back oom there was the general gambling room where all the indigents were.

PD: Gerald worked part-time as a cement worker….you had to be prepared to fight your way out. It was a rough place to hang out, really a dive. Later on when I was a probation officer I had checked the files, the sheriff’s files on this place–and there were dozens of blue sheets on calls for fights, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon….

PD: …hard oak clubs that I inherited with the building…If you got tapped with those you were out cold. They were like pieces of steel. Oh man, they had quite a reputation….for quite a few years she sold a lot of beer down there….Coastside was pretty open, you know what I mean: prostitution, gambling, whatever, so that’s why Gladys sold booze and more beer.

June: While there was a heavy crowd here was there a big crowd at the Miramar Beach inn, too? Was it happening on this whole street?

Pete: I’ll tell you what. You could go see Marlene [Carswell] who lived here for years….and lived with Jack Fagundes who ran the grocery store at the Miramar….

(intermission, while I tell you what Marlene Carswell said and then we’re back to the June 7 1975 interview with Pete Douglas)

————————–
In June of 1975 I called Marlene Carswell around dinnertime. It was a short phone conversation. Her voice was youthful, and according to my notes, “she is a wealth of knowledge”–a resident of the Coastside for nearly 20 years.

Ms. Carswell said the Miramar Beach Inn was known to her as “the Store”–the name taken from Fagundes, “Jack’s Store”. Jack Fagundes purchased the building from Maymie Cowely, the original owner. A very old man still lived upstairs.

Jack ran it as a store for about a dozen years.

[Note: The night I spoke with Ms. Carswell I had Bob Corbett over for dinner. He didn't live in Miramar but he often visited Michael Powers. I think he lived somewhere in Southern California and had a accountant background. Over dinner Bob told me he knew a Vivian Laird who lived in Orange County where she had once run a Prohibiton roadhouse--as had Maymie Cowely. This is highly speculative and uncorroborated yet interesting info-- but Bob told me that Ms. Laird told him Joe Kennedy (the very one) knew Miramar Beach's Maymie Cowley.]

Ms. Carswell recalled the Miramar Beach Inn as the Balboa Hotel. That was the name of the building before Jack Fagundes bought it, she said. She said she had towels from the Balboa and a coat rack, also a box of matches with a sketch of the Balboa on it.

She reminisced about Albert Schmidt, owner of “Albert”s, the former site of the Palace Miramar Hotel at the southern end of Mirada Road.

Her relationship with Jack Fagundes turned into a local scandal and I’m not going to get into it here. Suffice it to say, she went through a difficult period.

Later, Marlene said, Jack bought and ran the Mercantile Store in town. He died about 1970, either by his own hand or in a car accident, I’m not certain which.

She remembered bets waged on how long the wooden Amesport Pier (at Albert’s, the former Palace Miramar Hotel) would last. She believed Alberts burned about 1966 or 67.

There were ten rooms upstairs at the Balboa Hotel (Miramar Beach Inn). In each room there was an alcove to hang a coat, a sink. electric light and bell system connected to the kitchen. There was a row of bells. She kept a hat rack.

To Marlene, Mirada Road was “her road”–and she felt there had been too much change. Remember, this was in 1975.

She said that the Half Moon Bay attorney Brian Jones was doing a character study for a book about the Coastside.

——————————–
Continuation of June 1975 interview with Pete Douglas

———————————–

Burt & I were visiting Las Vegas last week as the Miss America contestants and their handlers and others involved were arriving in the “what happens here stays here” town–but I did not know there was a beauty contest until:

-we were walking by the shops at the Wynn Hotel when I spied this statuesque woman wearing a short, tight black strapless dress. Very high heels. Not spike but the even
thicker, higher ones. She had no purse but she was accompanied by a handsome dark skinned guy her size but older. I couldn’t figure out their relationship because he seemed
to be escorting her into the shops not as a boyfriend but as something officious. Introducing her to the clerks.

She was the first “beauty” I saw. [The contest was taking place at the Aladdin so this was "overflow"]. And I still didn’t know the Miss America contest was taking place in Vegas.

Then, a few hours later while we were strolling through the casino, I spied a cluster of unusually attractive young “girls” wearing very pretty dresses and spikey heels. They were all blonde, chatting amiably with each other–. Upon later reflection I realized they were acting very Miss America-contestant-like. You know they had bonded, accepting their eventual roles as Miss Congenial or Miss Sweetest, whoever they were. They were
accompanied by a sleazy looking short, older guy wearing a leather jacket, a new one.

Seconds later the pretty girls were joined by another one, the only brunette wearing
slacks and an expensive looking cropped black leather jacket. I liked that jacket.

These ladies were headed to one of two places, a very expensive restaurant or night club, both located down a curved staircase. Hotel guests were watching every
step they took in their high heels, listening to every laugh and snippet of conversation. I continued to be amazed that they could walk in those shoes. I sure couldn’t.

—————————————-

Interview with Mike McCreary (Long Version) 1981

Mike McCreary (MM): In the early fall there’s really good surfing at Venice Street and Kelly Street and sometimes Dunes Beach–primarily Venice Street and a street the surfers call N St which is halfway between Kelly & Venice. I guess it means “No Street.”

MM: Right where the pier goes out–that pier has created a channel–the pier they put out there to lay pipe. A temporary pier to lay sewarge outfall line. (I think the sewage might back up against the reef–but that’s another subject).

MM: Where the pier goes out, it creates a natural rip tide.

MM: When we get good waves in the winter, they’re usually pretty big–if you don’t have a rip tide to create a channel you can’t really get out–you can get out but you can’t have fun. The pier creates a natural channel on both sides. so the surf’s been really good there the last couple of winters which is a new spot.

MM: Pier’s been there about two years.

MM: The reason the waves are good in the fall is because we get offshore winds from the east that blow out of the canyons. When it’s warmer over here than over the hill (when the sun’s out here and the fog’s over the hill) it can create east winds for the whole area. East winds make ideal surfing conditions.

MM: From right now (Sept-March) it’s a really good time to surf in Half Moon Bay.

MM: You could surf all year ’round at the jetty–that’s a natural spot. The reason it’s good all year long is because the prevailing winds come from the northwest–and the headland, Pillar Point, locks the northwest wind but blocks the chop the wind creates and in the lee? of the jetty it’s nice and smooth and the wind kind of blow sideways.

MM: When I first started surfing there in high school, I called it the breakwater–but it’s becoming known as “Surfer’s Beach” or “El Granada Beach”. I call it the breakwater still.

MM: Generally it’s a small spot, sheltered form the open ocean so the swell has to wrap round the headland to get in there–by wrapping round it loses some of its strength, strength breaking on the reef off Half Moon Bay–so there’s not too many dangerous currents and it doesn’t get that big and it’s a beginner-intermediate surf spot.

MM: More advanced surfers surf at Venice and Kelly Street. Waves get very large, too large to surf but you can surf to about 6 or 8 feet. Last winter was the biggest swell we’ve had since 1969, I’d say; the swell got up to 20-25 feet.

MM: Nobody surfed. When the swell gets that big you have to go to Santa Cruz or Monterey. There’s so many new surfers in Half Moon Bay–at least 100. A lot of young kids who boogie board.

MM: Craig “Cowboy” MacArthur is probably one of the most famous surfers–he’s been surfing this area for a long time, since high school. He’s a good surfer and makes boards. He stands out. I think he’s six feet tall.

MM: “Cowboy” makes his own boards–Cowboy Surfboards and he makes a surfboard for us, too, called the Miramar surfboard. We have our brand Miramar surfboards and we have a couple of people making boards. One of the guys lives in San Diego.

MM: Craig, primarily in the past few years, has been making all our surfboards. The demand for surfboards locally has gotten to the point where we need more than what Craig makes.

MM: We make surfboards for the local conditions. There is no perfect surfboard for Half Moon Bay. The surfboard we sell now has been getting shorter and shorter–and ranges from 5′4″ to 6′ average. They’re short and wide. Twin fins are very popular. Tri-fins are popular, they’re called tri-fin thrusters (underneath you have a fin or scag and surfers started out at 9-10 feet with 1 fin years ago in the early 1950s. Fiberglass surfboards started being produced and they ranged 9-10 feet and they progressively have gone down like a foot a year.

MM: I’d say we average 3-4 surfboards a week. Once you buy a surfboard, you can keep it and surf on it for several years. We sell a lot of wet suits. They wear out a lot faster. No, there is no ideal wetsuit for Half Moon Bay, that’s one of the reasons that we sell four different kinds, four brands. The ideal wetsuit is one that’s good quality and fits you really well.

MM: Not every board is cut the same–every board is a different pattern.

MM: Wetsuits are responsible for surfing being so popular. Wesuits have different cuts, seam applications, material that’s thinner, flexible but more dense and a different type of neophrene. The objective is to stay warm and not cramped. The temperature is about 58 degrees. Spring is the coldest, I think.

MM: In the summer the swell changes direction. It comes out of the southern hemisphere, out of the sw, so it tends to shifts currents, so the water warms off L.A. and moves up here. I’d say surfers go out in all kinds of conditions, even terrible conditions. They’re so eager to get into the ocean.

MM: Most people know “Cowboys” car; they know he’s “out there”, and they know the surf’s good. Generally Cowboy doesn’t go out unless it’s good.

MM: As you get older as a surfer, you have more responsibility. Your time is more precious and you wait for the best waves.

…more…

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  • Apple
  • Arnold Drapkin
  • Art & Arty Websites
  • Arthur H. Samish
  • artichokes
  • Atherton
  • Attorney Marvin Lewis
  • Babagi
  • Babes in the Woods Case
  • Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
  • Barbara Vanderwerf
  • Basset Hounds
  • Bay Book
  • Bay Meadows
  • Beatniks
  • Bellvale
  • Bev Cunha Ashcraft
  • Bill Claudino
  • Bill Doerner
  • Bill Middlejohn
  • Bill Wheatley
  • Billy Grosskurth, Marine View Tavern
  • birds
  • Bo-Tree Productions
  • Bob Lemmon
  • Bonny Doon
  • book reviews
  • Bowling Ball Beach
  • Brinkley
  • Brother Buzz
  • Bruce Haig
  • Bruce Orchid
  • Bruce Pine
  • Bryant Wollman
  • Burt Blumert
  • Cabo San Lucas
  • Calif. State Auto Assn
  • Carol A. Turner
  • Carole Allen
  • Carole DelMar
  • Caroline Carlisle
  • Caroline Dias
  • castle
  • cat
  • Catherine & Bob Fraley
  • Cathy Duncan
  • CCH Pounder
  • Chad Hooker
  • Chamarita
  • Channing Pollock
  • Charlie Nye