Well, it's almost time for that ol' rascal of a weekend: Sunset Junction! Lots of friends coming from all over and up and down the West Coast. Ellen and Simon and son, Kobe, arrive for Sunday night's closing - or so I think. They're motoring down the coast - the most gorgeous bit of road in this country, or so I think - and will be spent by arrival, I am sure.
Marshall arrives tomorrow by plane. Oddly enough, it is through Marshall that I know Ellen, as she was his neighbor downstairs on Comm Ave in Boston oh so long ago... over 30 years now! Simon told me today via email that Marshall gave Kobe his first dollar bill (that's HUGE) when he was just a tyke of two. How cute. They're on their way to Legoland down a bit further south, I guess. Ugh, theme parks -- don't get me started. Oh, please, DO.
Marshall's arrival will mean installation of XP and Office, as he is all things Microsoft. This is a Linex system - Linspire. I am sort of okay with this, but have had trouble with easy access to certain files kept on CD. I dread anything that is open to destructo minds, and MS products are victims big time, simply because.
But all looks kind of cool and groovy - a reunion of sorts here . Also in the mix will be Laura Whipple, of whom we have things in here posted. She hain't seen Marshall since Tea Party days back in Boston in the'70s. Oy. What was it - two street fairs ago? - that I asked Marshall as to Intermedia, who I was working for when we met, me thinking he worked for them too. They built the Ark, which eventually became the Tea Party, and they also did the logistics for Woodstock - Do I have tales to tell? Anyhow, knowing what I did about the vast number of tickets sold for the "Aquarian Age Festival," and the 13 chemical toilets with no place to put them yet, I just couldn't see myself being in that quagmire, so goes that story... Anyhow, I asked Marshall what he did that weekend. He was at the Tea Party, doing the sound (it's what the man did then), with the Velvet Underground - the old Tea Party was their favorite venue, hands down. Mine too. I hitch hiked to NYC that weekend with a long-gone friend, Jacques Mann, and we spent the night on St. Marks Place - T Rex, or as they were called then Tyrannosaurus Rex was playing at a club right there, as we spent a dreary soaking wet night on the steps of the Fillmore, Jacques dutifully putting off guys wanting him to come with them. Ah, memories. Sunday morning, we rang my art teacher from years back, Yvonne Bauduin, whose address was on East 3rd in the Bowery, very close to Thompkins Sq. She let us in at whatever ungodly hour it was (daylight though) and made us breakfast - I am sure we looked bedraggled. Then a hitch home, with some dude on the NY State Throughway in a stretch limo giving us THE RIDE right to the front door of my Brookline St. apartment in Cambridge -- he had been at Woodstock, delivering talent. Do I regret not having attended? I have a story of my own that doesn't involve tripped-out muddy hippies. I was selling The Old Mole (was I fucking nuts?), a very radical paper I was artist on staff. yeah, New Yorkers So want to read about SDS mayhem in Cambridge. And I was stuck carrying them as they were collateral or sorts. Speaking of muddy hippies.... My last day of employ with Intermedia was a day or so after that event. Some truck loaded with equipment - lighting and sound - broke down on the highway and I went to retrieve it with somebody from the truck rental firm -- we never located it. Bad directions? Ah, hippies! And a gracious "Hello, How are ya?" to Stuart Vidockler and Gerd Stern, the two dudes I worked for at this lustrous affair called Intermedia. Hey, they're legends. Really. Trips Festival ring a bell? Electric KoolAde anyone? Check it out.
So, Street Fair! Sunday night, The Cramps! Wooo Hoooo! Crowds and nuttiness. Hippies on acid. If only.
www.sunsetjunction.org have a look see.