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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
The Commander-In-Chief circa 1974
The early seventies: all things permitted.
The revolution was over.
We had lost.
Party time.
We were doing mountains of blow (coke not yet addictive—cause for celebration), drinking, clubbing.
O my fellow sprouts, I did the mandatory twig infatuation with Burroughs' thousand wounded galaxies on the nod, heroin, every single layer and cell of my being down to the Core perfect, perfect, humming, buzzing, fuzzy and gleaming.
I quit abruptly when I realized, wisely, that morphing into junkiehood would seriously screw up my drinking.
The key to successful living is in one's intention.
I studied the Physicians Desk Reference, concocting pill cocktails. My basic rule of thumb was to note the maximum dosage recommended for a given drug and not exceed that amount by more than a factor of two or three, on the maiden voyage, anyway. Black beauties+valium+rum: good for drinking lightyears into a blackout. Cocaine+mushrooms+brandy: intergalactic shuttles landing in North Beach earthport. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard.
Friends began dying.
Car crash.
Suicide.
Overdose.
Mr. San Francisco reigned over the city.
Standing on the corner of Polk and Pine, drunk, 2:30 a.m., waiting for
copyboy on duty at the Ex coming to pick me up and bring me back to
work for my shift in the wire-room that began at 12:00. A really good
looking woman walked across the street, came right up to, put one hand
between my legs, the other behind my head to pull me in for a kiss. She
said
—I love making gay men hard.
And I said,
—Let's go.
She lost interest in a thrice, realizing it wasn't a gay man she was
making hard, just some stupid, straight, three-decades-too-early
metrosexual and headed off for the Cable Car, an all-night eatery the
gay boys hit if they hadn't scored at the bar. I followed her over, but
got nowhere. The copyboy kept circling the block, looking for me,
finally heading back to the paper. I rolled in some time later, via cab.
Monday a.m. quarterbacking: I should have lisped to her as she fondled me
—I've never felt like thith before. I am tho confuthed!
Party rolled on. Drunk sky diminishing, darker.
A memorable evening snorting coke, with rum on the rocks, off the
upstairs table at Vesuvio's before heading to the Stones at the Cow
Palace. Sex with M in the back seat of my friend Hamp's Mercedes on the
101, early evening, heading to show, cars to swerving and braking
around us. Oblivious. And the Stones sucked. Except for Keith, of
course.
Delusions are kind: by that year, Mr. San Francisco was living in an
apartment in North Beach, Mason right above Columbus on the cable car
line. With brother Nate and a couple other drunks. The local police
station had our place, perhaps the building, a funky three-story, on a
list as a "bawdy house," meaning a lot was going on but no one was
making any money at it. We were all broke all drunk all high all the
time. I could hear the cable car coming around the curve up Mason, run
down two flights of stairs, out the front door and hop on as it passed
the building. Tourists always impressed. Cable car to 5th & Market,
two blocks from M&M.
Dad died at 49 in 1974. Acute
alcoholism. Huge memorial at California Historical Society. Obit in NY
Times. Big Time dying. I blamed Nixon and the Lizard People for his
death: weren't they after all the good men, in truth?
Examiner reporter Jerry Belcher, my dad's old friend, quit the paper
and moved to LA. Job at Times. He loved his new job, his new house in
Pasadena, except for a neighbor's dog which left a deposit on the front
lawn every shining morn. He bitched about the dog constantly to fellow
ex-Ex reporter John Hurst. Hurst, as patient as any drinking man, tired
of the tirades. He called a friend at the LA Zoo. Had the friend dump a
load of elephant dung on Belcher's front lawn. A call from neighbor to
Belcher at the Times:
—Someone has dumped a load of horse manure on your front lawn.
Belcher livid. Hurst said, innocently, let's drive over there. En route, Hurst remarked
—I think know something about this. I think maybe our pals at the M&M are behind something here ...
They arrived at Belcher's house. He looked at the pile of manure. He said
—That's not horse manure. That's elephant shit.
A gentle and erudite man.
Belcher fumed, furious, sort of. We got word of blame. This led to drinking and a collective contemplation of options.
Bill O'Brien, former Examiner reporter, ex-Alioto press aide, called a
friend at the SF Zoo. I went out to the zoo. With elephant keeper, into
the elephant pen I went with a special shovel and hoisted eighteen
pounds of fresh manure into garbage bag. Big huge real elephants
gathered around us to watch. I took the bag home and put it into a
wooden French wine crate I had gotten somewhere. It sat for three days
in our North Beach apartment, ripening. I think I was drinking.
I took it to the UPS depot on Potrero Hill to ship it to LA Times city room. The man inquired as to contents of box.
—You want to know the truth?
—Yes
—Elephant dung
He laughed and said
—Well, fill out this form.
I filled out the form.
Contents: Elephant Dung.
Declared value: ?
Asked the kindly man what I should enter there.
He laughed again.
—Not very much, I suppose!
I brought the form back to his station. He read it and looked perplexed.
—You weren't kidding about the elephant dung?
—No.
Pause.
—Is this some kind of joke?
—Yes.
—Well, we can't ship this shit!
Adamant. Flustered.
—Why?
Innocent.
—Because it might break and get all over the place ... sorry.
Dilemma. How to ship? A good friend ran a freight forwarding company. Solved!
Hurst filed this report later:
The magic crate arrived in the LA Times, where talk of Belcher's
manure-on-lawn-dumping yet lingered. Delivered on a handtruck into the
middle of the City Room where Belcher worked one fine afternoon at
deadline time. Fancy wine crate. Sensing top-shelf booze from afar, a
clutch of reporters sidled en masse over to Belcher's desk as he
excitedly cut through the strong twine I had tied around the crate. He
pulled the top off, excitement growing. Co-workers sardined in close
for a better view. Belcher ripped open the garbage bag.
Manure one week ripe now.
Stank bomb!
Belcher never learned who was really behind these historical events.
1978: A Sunday afternoon punk show, all girl bands, at Day's Irish Deli in the Tenderloin.
I had been drinking all afternoon. My droogies, need I mention this?
I thought not.
The party wound down and I walked towards the door, wearing my
brand-new silver Beatles boots, at about six p.m., as drunk as every
other lunatic in there. From my right, beyond my field of vision, a
sexy voice chimed in
—I like your boots.
Every man reading this knows that when one hears something like that at
a punk show, it is graven in stone that one will find the source of the
remark to be a two-hundred-and-twenty pound lovely with a skunk mohawk,
knee-high studded boots, a red and black plaid skirt, too short, a
ripped and safety-pinned Ramones t-shirt, and a sleeveless black
leather jacket covered with Damned, Clash, Subhuman, Weirdos, Black
Flag patches, smiling beringed and pierced and gazing at one, make-up
like Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera.
So the wise man pretends not to hear and stumbles on.
But being a gentleman, or just drunk, I stopped and turned to say
—Thank you.
Only to see before me a vision of loveliness: a beautiful and petite
young porn star, Miss Candida Royalle, beaming brightly, fresh from her
starring role in Pizza Girls or Pro Ball Cheerleaders, or something. We
strolled off into the night to the only two bars in town where I still
had active tabs.
O my brothers, words to live by:
—Silver Beatle Boots ... they work every time.
Met wife-to-be in the Albatross shortly thereafter.
Had met many girls over the years, but they all, except for wife-to-be, said, at some point
—Knox, don't you think you drink a little too much?
Standard reply:
—Actually, I think you don't drink enough. 'Bye!
San Francisco of the seventies, three thousand six hundred and fifty
party nights. A dream now. A fading remembrance of the last great and
staggeringly beautiful days and nights of San Francisco.
Patience, patience—we are getting to HoneyBun soon. Your humble
narrator is simply trying here to establish how HoneyBun's roots go
deep back into the culture of our modern West Coast era.
Twenty years later, at the height of the dotcom boom, Candida was back
in town from NYC, where she lives in the west Village, for a gala
affair at the Castro Theater called "Beyond Boogie Nights." The event
consisted of a clip show of '70s porn films and a panel discussion
comprised of retired porn stars from that era.
The highlight for me occurred when the lights dimmed for the film clips
and Richard Pacheco, a one-time pornstar now house-husband, onstage,
crawled under the table around which the panel of speakers sat and
attempted oral sex on Carol Queen, in the darkness, without warning
her. She screamed. He scurried back to his seat at the other end of the
table.
I met a Salon staffer at the champagne reception that preceded the
hoopla. We were talking about Salon and I mentioned how much I enjoyed
the Unzipped column. She told me they had cancelled it and were looking
for a male romance writer.
My brothers and sisters: How well I knew exactly who that new writer should be!
Intermezzo 3 Date May 1, 2003
From:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
To: [undisclosed recipients]
Subject: Doc was here 2 <p>
Friends: <p>
Subject: Doc was here <p>
So as we last found our intrepid wanderer, he was heading south to let
things cool down in his loving little Oakland neighborhood ... <p>
Today, Friday, I left the warm home of my friends Tana and Bob in Santa
Cruz today. I had originally planned to stay one night, ended up
staying four. It was so comfortable at their home and Santa Cruz itself
is such a neat place - I found myself thinking of the Berkeley of my
youth [liberal, goofy in political correctness, artsy, minus the mean
craziness found in the feminist peoples' republic these days] ... but
with a beach and surfers, too.<p>
I made my way down to Monterey. Went to the aquarium for the first time. What an amazing place.<p>
But I found myself thinking of John Steinbeck & Doc Ricketts a lot
... As most of you know, Doc was the main character in Steinbeck's
novels Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, as well as Steinbeck's journal
Log from the Sea of Cortez (their marine specimen-gathering
trip).<p>
Doc liked to drink. Steinbeck tells of a party at Doc's that had been
rolling along for a day or two. At some point Doc passed out, woke up
twenty minutes later, lifted the quart beer bottle his hand was still
wrapped around to his lips, took a big swig, wiped his mouth with his
sleeve and exclaimed
—Ah, there is nothing like the first one of the day! <p>
O my droogies, this is how it is done, as all of you are most cognizant.<p>
Did an open mike in the town next to Monterey ... for the life of me
can't remember the name ... run by an old hippie who wore a tophat and
... oh yeah ... killed them! Met some kids from the army ... a couple
of really cute girls, one named Angie ... studying Korean at the army's
language place nearby. Went wandering around Monterey after, lots of
bars, duh ... had fish and chips. Went to kinko's ... started writing
this letter about midnight.<p>
Some blonde came in, 40ish, cute, country type. She started asking me
how to do stuff on the computer. One thing led to another & I asked
her if she wanted to go get a drink. So we went a pub (I had a soda
water, she had a small draft) & Knoxie is thinking maybe he'll get
lucky!<p>
Immediately she starts talking about high-dosage mineral supplements
she's taking. Then on to EMF radiation from the power transformer near
her house. Then onto how she's burnt out from her job as a masseuse
because of the energy vampires she had as clients. Let's see ... then
she told me about her 7 birds, 3 cats, 3 dogs in this tiny place she
lives that apparently is so filled with flotsam and jetsam that there
is only ONE chair in the whole place. I guess in her bedroom, which
doubles as her home office.<p>
Sooooo ... I figure she must have been some kind of teacher! :)<p>
Oh the pupil is soooo ready.<p>
In between green and blue,
Knox
Vegas detour
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