Sunday, November 09, 2003
And speaking of Telegraph Avenue back in the glory days when it didn't smell like wee in every doorway and there was no Gap store for disappointed candy-ravers to loot ... you'd bump into musicians and other sorts of street artists living out a part of their lives there:
1) Robbie Basho looking mystical in his beard, robes and rope belt. Need I say more?
2) Barbara Dane walking along the Avenue with Lightning Hopkins and ducking into the India Imports store, where he bought his made-in-Mexico serape striped surfer vest.
3) Mixed among the leather belt stampers was David Lindley as a street merchant selling his artistically painted rocks (one of which, I swear, was inscribed with "Help! I'm a rock".)
4) Robert Crumb dressed in a suit playing his banjo with a hat in front of him, and a sign made from the cardboard pulled from a new shirt package that said: "I need to raise $25,000 to sue the crooked lawyers who stole all my money" or words to that effect.
5) A newly arrived to town band, two of whose members decided to play a duet in front of the Bank of America on accordian and snare drum, see George and Pooky who with the right direction soon performed under their real stage name "Commander Cody" after someone heard them playing there.
6) John Cippollina (of Quicksilver Messenger Service) and Nicky Hopkins (piano player then with a famous English group) wearing velvet bell bottoms and fur coats and jumping out the back seat of a double-parked Rolls Royce to run into Cody's book store for an urgent read.
7) A musician famous for B-3 hammond local rock palace appearances tripping on some mind-altering substance and walking straight into every passerby, just not noticing they were part of his physical sphere.
8) Managers of "acid-rock" bands wearing mufflers and overcoats, looking prosperous walking a pair of salukis.
9) Andy Warhol (again! what's he doing here?)
10) Arthur Rubinstein's son, the actor James, in the midst of one of his many schizy episodes in the aisle between the magazine rack and the remainders table at Shakespeare's book store
11) And even Sgt. Joe Friday himself, Jack Webb.
Now that last sighting was where I thought I was seriously losing it. I was in a coffee house communing with my macchiato and staring casually out the large plate glass window when I spied a familiar figure striding purposefully down the sidewalk.
I had many doubts about this particular apparition, such a strange thing would not be, could not really be happening in front of my eyes, not even on Telegraph Avenue, which was then to my thinking one of the strangest streets in the world. But, yes, it was truly Jack Webb, coming to see the scene for himself in the hippie demonstratin hey-days, to get the lay of the land for whatever reason, a future televised episode perhaps. "Just the haps, man" and I read about the reasons behind his visit later in the local newspaper. So, there, it really happened.
12) I watched a wellknown poet feed the meter even though that offense was punishable by law.
¶ 11/09/2003 12:26:00 PM
1) Robbie Basho looking mystical in his beard, robes and rope belt. Need I say more?
2) Barbara Dane walking along the Avenue with Lightning Hopkins and ducking into the India Imports store, where he bought his made-in-Mexico serape striped surfer vest.
3) Mixed among the leather belt stampers was David Lindley as a street merchant selling his artistically painted rocks (one of which, I swear, was inscribed with "Help! I'm a rock".)
4) Robert Crumb dressed in a suit playing his banjo with a hat in front of him, and a sign made from the cardboard pulled from a new shirt package that said: "I need to raise $25,000 to sue the crooked lawyers who stole all my money" or words to that effect.
5) A newly arrived to town band, two of whose members decided to play a duet in front of the Bank of America on accordian and snare drum, see George and Pooky who with the right direction soon performed under their real stage name "Commander Cody" after someone heard them playing there.
6) John Cippollina (of Quicksilver Messenger Service) and Nicky Hopkins (piano player then with a famous English group) wearing velvet bell bottoms and fur coats and jumping out the back seat of a double-parked Rolls Royce to run into Cody's book store for an urgent read.
7) A musician famous for B-3 hammond local rock palace appearances tripping on some mind-altering substance and walking straight into every passerby, just not noticing they were part of his physical sphere.
8) Managers of "acid-rock" bands wearing mufflers and overcoats, looking prosperous walking a pair of salukis.
9) Andy Warhol (again! what's he doing here?)
10) Arthur Rubinstein's son, the actor James, in the midst of one of his many schizy episodes in the aisle between the magazine rack and the remainders table at Shakespeare's book store
11) And even Sgt. Joe Friday himself, Jack Webb.
Now that last sighting was where I thought I was seriously losing it. I was in a coffee house communing with my macchiato and staring casually out the large plate glass window when I spied a familiar figure striding purposefully down the sidewalk.
I had many doubts about this particular apparition, such a strange thing would not be, could not really be happening in front of my eyes, not even on Telegraph Avenue, which was then to my thinking one of the strangest streets in the world. But, yes, it was truly Jack Webb, coming to see the scene for himself in the hippie demonstratin hey-days, to get the lay of the land for whatever reason, a future televised episode perhaps. "Just the haps, man" and I read about the reasons behind his visit later in the local newspaper. So, there, it really happened.
12) I watched a wellknown poet feed the meter even though that offense was punishable by law.
¶ 11/09/2003 12:26:00 PM
