In Los Angeles, because entertainment is an industry, everybody knew somebody who was on television, in the movies, or in commercials, or who were on records. Or you'd run into these stars everywhere it seemed, or at least anyplace that they happened to be. And somebody (consider them a member of the audience when spotting the star) always recognized them and said, "Oh, look, there's so and so, the one who (is on TV in such and such a show, usually calling the actor by the character's name he'd made famous) or that movie ("You know the one I mean"), or in commercials (and they could recite the actor's lines about whatever product), or on record (and they knew at least a line of a song the person had currently made famous).

Now that Captain Beefheart manager I told you about before. He went to school with and knew the children of a man who had a famous underwater television series. They were such close friends, they'd even given him a pick of the litter, a St Bernard puppy dog.

Lucky bastard.

But not only THAT .... just imagine this incredible stroke of good fortune from sheer propinquity to Hollywood. When the Beefheart manager was but a teenager and wanted to ride motorcycles, who was it who taught him how to ride?

A real life motorcycle policeman. And not just any motorcycle policeman, as was soon pointed out to me, but one who rode very well indeed. In fact, he could wire a short piece of chalk onto the handlebar grip and ride his Harley Davidson around an oil barrel leaving an uninterrupted chalk mark, all without putting his foot on the ground.

Imagine that! And to thrill you more, this motorcycle policeman had appeared on an episode of "You Asked For It". That was a weekly television show where people wrote in with strange daredevil requests ("A viewer from St Louis, Missouri writes in saying, 'I've heard about a man who can drive his convertible blindfolded. Are people pulling my leg or is there really such a man?' And Art Baker, the host with silver hair and sometimes small checks on his sports jacket he wore out into the field, would assure the viewers that there is indeed such a person, and they'd show a film of the guy driving in a convertible down the freeway blindfolded). So the television show honored the request by televising the stunt in action.

That story alone should make you hold your chin in your hand as you shake your head in disbelief and say "Damn!" Yes, even the local policeman was a television star in Hollywood.

On this show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZorF_YUWLM

So even when you were stopped by the police, and the cop was writing out a ticket, you could imagine the credits rolling over his head.  ¶ 12/26/2010 09:30:00 PM