So, I want to talk about art. So, as a matter of fact, when we left off last time, you talked about my brother's buffalo on my train. Yeah. And the chimneys of houses, one stone at a time, and the bricks, one brick at a time. Right. That's what we talked about when you were here last time. That's right. I wonder if that's true. Huh? Did I type from there? Was I typing? I think so. Okay. I don't remember though. Okay. But anyway, so, as I grew up, I was always drawing, making drawings. And I drew on all my papers in school. Oh, I told you also about the poster contest in junior high, the roundup.

[01:06]

Right. That's right. So, we talked about that. And then, I think that's probably about it. And then, all through high school, I drew on the edges of my papers. And I didn't pay much attention to the schoolwork. And I managed to get through everything just because I kind of intuitively knew how to speak English. Something like that. But I flunked a lot of courses. Courses that I had to learn something, I flunked. You had to memorize and study. Well, I had trouble memorizing things. I couldn't do that stuff. And so, I realized that I wanted to be an artist or a soldier because it was during the war.

[02:07]

And the war was going on. Everybody was adding to the war effort, you know. And there were people in the Army or the Navy or the Marines, you know. And growing up in that atmosphere, of course, I wanted to, you know, do something like that. So, as soon as I graduated from high school, I went on active duty with the Marine Reserve for a year and a half. What's this thought? Being a chronology. Okay. And when I got out of the, when I was discharged, I had the GI Bill. So, I wanted to go to art school. And I went to an art school in Los Angeles, a small art school in Los Angeles, where I met some other students. And they said, well, let's go to San Francisco. There's a great art school in San Francisco called the California School of Fine Art.

[03:14]

And I said, okay. So, I went up there to the California School of Fine Art, which is now called the San Francisco Art Institute. Okay. Chestnut Street, 800. It's a great school. And I had no idea, you know, what was going on there. But, and I thought that I was supposed to take commercial art classes in order to support myself as an artist. But I did take those commercial art courses. But I also took painting courses. And painting courses were what really grabbed me. And I, one day, some of the students said that this painter Clifford Still, one of the teachers, had an art show in the gallery on Sutter Street called the Met Art Gallery.

[04:30]

What? Met Art Gallery. Met, M-E-T. M-E-T, A-R-T. And that I should go see it. So, I went down, and as soon as I entered the room, it just was an overwhelming emotional impact on me. I mean, paintings never had made that kind of an impact on me before. You know, I just connected with it right away. And then I took his classes, and so he became my teacher. And actually, we lived in a house, in a boarding house on Russelton Hill, where his wife and two children lived. And there was also a photographer who lived there named Blair Stapp, who was actually quite a well-known, he became quite a famous photographer, but he died very young. Very nice guy.

[05:32]

And Minor White was also at the Art Institute, and took some photographs of me one time, which I still have. And David Park was teaching there, and Elmer Bischoff was teaching there. So, I took classes from Elmer Bischoff and from David Park, but Clifford Still was really my teacher. But he never did teach. He used to come around and talk to you. He'd come around and talk to you, but he wouldn't talk about art. I mean, he wouldn't talk about what you were doing. So, he wouldn't talk about it directly? No, he would just talk about something, you know, like politics. Or philosophy, or, you know, something. But he was a very interesting guy. He was very tall, and a little mustache, and a hat, a snap-brim hat, and a double-breasted suit, which fit him in a funny way.

[06:51]

What funny way? Well, like kind of tight, you know, and a little ill-fitting, and a tie, and he had a silver Jaguar, and sometimes he wore spats. But he had kind of shaggy gray hair, and he didn't look like an artist. He had rimless glasses, you know. He looked more like a professor, you know. Very intellectual. But he was a very wild painter, and a very wild, powerful painter. So he was an abstractionist? What school was he in? Well, we used to call it non-objective painting, and then the press called it abstract expressionism.

[07:54]

And so he was always fighting the art wars. So, California was where he'd come to rest, and then he'd go to New York to fight the art wars. With Peggy Guggenheim, and all those people back there. And then he loved Mark Rothko. Who? Mark Rothko. Oh, okay. But he didn't have a lot of kind words for most of the other painters. So his whole life was this, you know, embattlement of the entrenched art world, and in their poor taste. And his battle was to open their minds up to some real painting.

[09:01]

You know, real expression. And I must say, he also had the biggest one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, of any one modern painter. So he was, you know, fighting these battles. And he had a lot of students, people that had just gotten out of the service. This was in the 50s, 1950, 51. And there were all these guys that had gotten out of the service. They were a more mature guy, and they were really interested in what he was doing. And so it was a very vital time, a very vital time at the Art Institute.

[10:09]

Because Clifford Still was there, who was, you know, really making a big impression on, creating a lot of energy. And David Park was also, you know, in his way, and Eleanor Bischoff, who were more traditionalists. They were, you know, more painting objectively. And then Ed Corbett was also a painter. And Ed Corbett and I, he was my teacher. But we had the first show at the King Ubu Gallery, which later turned into the 6th Gallery. What was the first name that you said? King Ubu. Ubu, how do you spell Ubu? U-B-U. And I'll be me. Another title.

[11:11]

So Clifford Still was kind of a recluse in a way. I don't know anybody who knew where his studio was. And he'd come and visit his wife and children in that place. But he was just off on his own, you know, and he had, I think he had a girlfriend who was living there, and something like that. But I had a good relationship with him. But he moved to New York. But Ed Corbett was a teaching painting man. Very wonderful, mild-mannered guy. And Robert Duncan and Jeff Jess, you know, Robert Duncan is a poet. Oh yeah, sure. And Jess, his friend, was a painter. Asked Ed Corbett and me to have a show together.

[12:21]

And there was a new gallery that they had developed down in the lower Fillmore. And they called it the King Ubu Gallery. King Ubu was the name of somebody from a play or something like that. And then the gallery became the 6th Gallery. Sixth. Sixth. And that's where... What's his name? Red Howell. You know that famous poem Howell? I know the poem. Allen Ginsberg's poem Howell? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Allen Ginsberg, that's where Ginsberg read the poem Howell. Oh, okay. After it became the 6th Gallery. And then I had... Were you there? Were you present? Yeah, I was. Oh, that was a famous night. Yeah, somebody chopped up the piano with an axe.

[13:24]

Well, tell me, do you remember that night? It seemed like Gary Snyder and a lot of people were present for it. And Kerouac was there. I think I met him. And all those guys were there. I met some ladies. Joanne Geiger and women who were part of that scene. I don't remember everybody that was there. What else do you remember from it? Well, I remember, you know, Allen reading this poem. And it was, you know, he was building it out, you know. And people got very excited. You know, it was a very exciting event. I mean, I think there were two readings. And I'm not sure if it was the first one or the second one.

[14:25]

The guy came down the aisle with a hatchet, an axe, and started chopping up the piano. I don't know if that was the first time or the second time. It's just like the equivalent of rock stars breaking their guitars and everything on stage. It's just like total freak-out atmosphere or something. Breaking free of form. That's what I remember. Those kind of flashes, you know, a few little flashes is what I remember. Did you know any of those guys personally? Yeah. Well, I knew Allen originally. And I knew... I knew David Meltzer very well, pretty well. Cohen? Yeah, Cohen. And...

[15:30]

I'm trying to think of his last name. You know, he had hair. Really? The stage play? Yeah. Just let me kind of look it up. Yeah, anyway, I know a lot of those people. So the Art Institute is in North Beach. That's in North Beach. So you were all part of the... And I was a part of the North Beach scene. And, of course, my wife Ruth... What do you remember of the North Beach scene? What was it like? Well, it was quite a scene. Yeah, let's hear the scene. I'd like to hear this. A long scene. Come on. It's a good day to tell a story. This is where we are now. And so we lived. I met Ruth.

[16:31]

And I told you about her. She had green hair and lived in a black room. Please talk about her again. Yeah, I know. And then we moved into this little apartment. Mrs. Aliotto. North Point Street. She had a little room, a detached room in the back. She rented it to us. I think it was Aliotto's mother or something. And so we lived there. And George, Bob, and Kitty lived upstairs in the front. And they used to make maps for a living. And so it was a kind of quiet apartment. And they had their little room where they made, their attic apartment, they made maps.

[17:35]

Maps of what? Whatever, you know, street maps. Or what? Or county maps. Or what maps? Calgary? County. Oh, county maps. City maps. Okay. Maps of anything that people wanted to make a map of. And then they smoked a lot of grass. Well, they were making these maps and they were really going to strip down all these tiny lines and colors. They smoked a lot of grass and listened to Miles Davis and, you know, the jazz scene and the grass scene. And they were very comfortable there. I don't know. And so, you know, they were our friends, you know. And then we had a circle of friends, you know, poets and painters and musicians. Jazz musicians, mostly.

[18:38]

And... I don't know. This guy Romero was his first name. His wife just called me recently. Is that his former wife? No. But he started the light show to music, you know. Oh, really? Yeah, he was the innovator of that. Of that form? Of that form, yeah. And then... When was that then? Oh, in the 50s. Oh, interesting. Because we think of light shows as, those of us who don't know, think of them as 60s innovations, but it was 50s. Well, he was doing it in the 30s. Oh, yeah. May have been the 60s. May have been the early 60s. But early. Yeah, very early. Nobody else was doing it but him. I mean, he had a little projector, a light projector, and then he had these slides

[19:44]

and he'd put chemicals on the slides and project it. And that was the beginning of that, in the garage, you know. Great. Yeah. And Jordan Belson, I knew him. Who was he? Well, he was a guy, he was a photographer. He made animated movies. That was his thing, animated movies, kind of like with a Kandinsky influence. But he was really devoted to it. And I think he actually influenced a lot of the animation. He was an early animated artist. And he was the first one that turned me on to pot. Later, I heard he became a yogi.

[20:46]

Was standing on his head in full lotus or something. I didn't see much of that. He was just standing by a jury of people, you know. Strangest people. People who were evil, you know. Precursors of the... Hate aspirant. Yeah, well, you know. What would it have said? Precursors of the goths. Today, the goths? Yeah. Everything that's happening today was happening in some form, you know, in those days. And then there were the junkies, you know. Yeah. Then the sex junkies.

[21:48]

And... You know, we... At one time, we lived on Ellis Street in the... It's a western addition. Before I tore it down in an attic for $20 a month. It was $25 a month. But then that landlord reduced it because he liked us to $20 a month. I don't hear those stories anymore. I know one person who has suffered a rent decrease from his landlord. Notice a rent decrease. He even says that. And then we lived in... In the Mission. In various places in the Mission. But one place we lived in was

[22:53]

in South Venice. And we'd have parties for artists, our friends, you know. Anyway. So, I went to the art school and I continued painting after... I didn't graduate, but I continued painting on my own. And I did have a gallery on... Fillmore Street, lower Fillmore Street. But I cannot remember the name of the woman. She was Russian. Russian Jewish lady. And she coined the word beatnik. Even though... It's attributed to her pain. She coined the word, and I was there when she did it. And I read in the letters to the editor in the Chronicle that last year somebody said

[23:57]

her pain didn't coin the word beatnik. This lady did. Wow. So... That confirms my... I can't remember her name. This is esoteric knowledge. Not everybody knows where beatnik came from. Well, she said, in Russia, we were called the beats. Right. In Russia, we were called the beatniks. Ah, okay. It's that simple. It's that simple. Okay. So, you had a gallery... And I was beatnik. Make sense? But where did hippie come from? And she had this gallery and her daughter was a painter. And she sold some paintings for me. She liked me. But I wasn't... Really? So your paintings sold? Oh, yeah. I mean, strangely enough. Because, you know, they were bought-out paintings. What were they? What were their paintings?

[24:58]

What were their paintings like? Well, you can't describe a painting that's not objective. You can't objectify an unobjective painting. I have some photographs that I'll show you sometime. But they're all gone. All the paintings are gone. Were they large canvases? Yeah. You can't describe it a little bit. It's not fair. Large canvases. Large canvases. Did they use bold and bright colors? What kind of color palette were you usually using? The whole spectrum. Hard to pin you down, boss. It is. Sometimes I paint very subtly. You know, I have a huge canvas. And I was working in a mattress factory at the time. You know, at night. And we were cutting mattress ticking,

[25:59]

this friend of mine and I. And so the mattress ticking, I just cut out some mattress ticking and put it in my lunchbox and take it home and frame it and size it and use that for canvas. I stole mattress ticking from the mattress factory. But at least I didn't sell mattresses out the window to a truck below, which some people did. Did they? Yep. That's citrus. So I'd take the mattress ticking, put it in my lunchbox, go home and frame it and size it and paint on it. And then I also painted with tar. With tar? Yeah. Black tar? Well, it was a kind of tar, so I found it in a can. Mixing it with white, I could get some variations of brown. Really earthy browns. And then I paint,

[26:59]

and I also use black paint. I like painting dark, but very subtle light, you know, gradations of light coming through and kind of dynamic movements flitting around. And... I was influenced by still, but I was also making an effort to find my own style. What was going on inside of you? What were you expressing? When you say you're trying to find your own style... Well, I was always, you know, I felt like my painting was more like music than painting. How was that?

[28:01]

In that I felt, since it was non-objective, it had to have some cohesive movement or something to... to bring it off. And so I was expressing kind of the emotion and the rhythm and the... tonal quality of paint, you know, of color... in the painting. Interesting. Yeah. So it's kind of... First of all, seeing that there are tonal qualities in color and expressing those in the painting. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. So sometimes your painting is very subtle. Big canvases with just some...

[29:05]

slight, subtle drama going on and sometimes there were, you know, very dynamic movement. So the whole spectrum, you know. Did you listen to music a lot when you were painting? What were you listening to? Well, you know, I was listening... When I was a kid, I used to go to the library because we didn't have a phonograph. I think I told you that. Yeah, I guess your father would buy a phonograph. He said no. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. So... Then I was turned on to Dixieland, which I didn't like at first, but then I got it, you know, and I used to listen to Dixieland a lot. And then I got turned on to Renaissance music. I heard this recording of Gabriele

[30:06]

and antiphonal music of brass, you know. So then I set up a system where I had antiphonal speakers. You know, so... music would be in the middle. But that was in the 50s. That was a long time ago. And then... So that was before stereo? Yeah, like a stereo. They didn't have stereos in the big... So this was almost like creating a stereo. Yeah, kind of like creating a stereo. And then I got interested in bebop. And... But I was always interested in classical music, you know. Anyway, I did classical music with my bassist, but when I started listening to jazz, I didn't listen to classical music at all.

[31:11]

And... So once you got into jazz, you dropped classical? Yeah, yeah, because, you know... It's different. Yeah, I couldn't put the two together. Jazz goes well with smoking dope. It does. It does. But it's only classical music. In classical music, you can enjoy straight or stump, but jazz is particularly wonderful to enjoy. So... Then I started playing music. And I wanted to be a trumpet player like Miles Davis, but I didn't know anything about music. So... I got to hold a trumpet player, Dickey Mills. And he was this young guy, but he was, you know, already jaded.

[32:22]

He wasn't jaded? Well, you know, with dope and... You know, the music world, you know, the jazz music world at that time was like... totally degenerate, you know. Was it? They were so heavy with drugs? They were so heavy with drugs and... I mean, guys would just be strung out all the time, you know. All the time. And looking for gigs, you know, and then they didn't have gigs, and then, you know, they'd get... And so... And then there was this group, you know, that we hung out with, of young guys trying to play music, you know. And we had these jam sessions and get high and, you know, listen to music.

[33:29]

Then... We lived in a mission. And around the 19th, around Dolores Park, actually. Not far. Not far, right up the street. I can't remember the street. I almost did. And my friends lived across the street. And then some musicians came to town and they moved into this place. There was an orphanage, an old orphanage. They had two buildings and a courtyard. And access to both streets. 19th Street and... That was the...

[34:34]

It was called Hill Haven. And this piano player from New Orleans moved in there. And other musicians moved in. And this Johnny, who was the piano player, married the landlady. And the place just became Hill Haven for all the jazz musicians. A certain class of jazz musicians. And bums, you know. And they came in and it was always kind of in flux, but there were always these guys that were always there, you know. So it was this big scene, you know. Oh, I like that. Sounds great. Yeah. And then I lived there for a while. And... Just everything went on there, you know. All kinds of interrelationships.

[35:38]

God, what a scene. So anyway, and a lot of people, you know. I think at that time I really felt like I really wanted to do something for these people. Because even though I was in that scene, I knew that that wasn't my scene. I knew that I didn't want to get... I could see these people getting sucked into, you know, the dope scene and the degeneracy scene without any way of getting out, you know. But I always felt that I... It wasn't... It was something I was passing through. It wasn't something that I was... hadn't bought into, you know. And I always felt that that wasn't my destiny. My destiny was something else, you know. And the spiritual part of my life, you know, it stimulated too during that time. And although I didn't know how to actualize it,

[36:42]

but I think I met a lot of people, and I interacted with a lot of people, and I understood a lot of things. And I was also driving a taxi at that time, I think. No, I can't think. I remember when I started driving. But, you know, when I was going to art school, this artist, Ernie Briggs, who was a very good artist, who went to New York, he went to Marin, and he said... And he got a job as a house painter. They were building this big housing project at Fort... Big Fort out there, near... above San Rafael. They had just abandoned it a few years ago.

[37:45]

It was an Air Force base. Anyway, so they weren't hiring anybody as a journeyman. A journeyman painter. Because they needed painters, right? And they were getting journeyman's wages, which was $2.45 an hour. So I went out there and got a job too. Joined the union and got a job as a house painter. And we were painting houses, you know. And then little by little I learned how to paint, house painting. And then I painted on my own, or I went out with contractors, you know. And then I heard about a job painting boats. But it was less money. A little less money. But I didn't care about that.

[38:46]

I wanted to have a job that I liked, and earn a little less money, and not have the competition, you know. So I started painting boats. At the Nunes Boat Shop. Nunes Brothers Boat Shop. It was a portion of these guys that built N-U-N-E-S. Built Errol Flynn's yacht. The Zaka. What's it called? The Zaka. I think that's what it's called. Z-A-C-C-A. It was a very famous yacht. Because that's where he used to seduce these young girls. So you in your own way contributed to it? Well, no, they built it long before I got there. This is the shop. But I worked at the shop for six years.

[39:47]

Is that in Sausalito? Yeah. It's no longer there. It was right across the street from Sally Stanford's place. Oh, yeah. The Bell Hollow. Yeah. Now it's an apartment building. Sad. Really sad. The whole place is such a great place. It was great. It was a huge building, you know. Old, old boat shop. And the guys were there working, and I was doing my painting, you know. It was a great atmosphere for working, you know. Even though the boss didn't know what he was doing. But they were nice guys, you know. And I could work part-time. You know, when a boat would come in, they'd call me and I'd go down and paint it, you know. Or I'd work, you know, for a month and then not work. But it was great because I could always go to work and I had plenty of time off from work to paint or whatever, you know. And so that was a great job. And then, so that was what I kind of did that as an artist, you know.

[40:49]

That was my work life. It was nice. Yeah, very nice. So you had two different kinds of painting. Right. That supported one another. Right. And... How did that change? How did that end? Stop being a painter, you know. Well, not sure. Then I started driving a cab. I think we went to Mexico. After we got married, we went to Mexico. Yeah, yeah. And then her parents gave us a 52 Ford that was there. And we drove all the way through Mexico before they had the highway. And you'd just go all through all these little pueblos, all these little towns, you know. And it was just a great trip. We ended up at the border of Guatemala, but we didn't want to go across because they wanted to take our tourist cards.

[41:51]

And I didn't want to give up my tourist card to these guys who were drunk and very... There's nobody around but these guys. Right. You know, in the middle of the jungle. Right. And they had control over everything, you know. We'd never get out of there. Yeah. So, but it was a great trip. We didn't spend a lot of time in Tolanta back then. But, you know, I was kind of... All through my painting life, you know, I had a lot of dissatisfaction. Well, you know, I felt that what I was expressing, you know, music, kind of musical feeling, but also spiritual feeling, you know. Spiritual? I felt there was something very... You know, I wanted to express something spiritual in my painting,

[42:54]

which I think I was doing. That's right. And kind of deeper feelings, you know. I saw a lot of abstract expressionists who, when I look at their paintings, mostly I felt they were not like mine at all. I mean, I felt that where they were coming from was a different place. There was a lot of movement and a lot of kind of thrashing around and a lot of throwing your paint around. But I didn't feel like there was any deep feeling coming out of it. You know, it was pretty... It's kind of like on the canvas, you know, it wasn't... It didn't evoke anything. Like Still's paintings really evoked some real charge, you know. And I never felt that about most of the others' abstract expressions. I felt they were doing interesting things, like more decorative, you know. So the thing that inspired me was Still's, you know, Punch.

[43:58]

So that was coming from a deeper place. Coming from a really deeper place, yeah. And it evoked that in you. It resonated, that connection. Right, and that was my inspiration. So it sounds like this deeper place, there weren't words for it. You knew that there was something there and you would feel it and you would feel the need to express it, but it's really in the dark. You didn't know what it was. Well, I knew what it was. What did you know? I mean, I knew that I was expressing some deep spiritual feeling, which was in the dark, because I used to... It was a dark thing, you know. It was in darkness. And when we talk about the light and the darkness, you know, that's very close to what I was feeling. Remember, I made a painting that was like real dark,

[45:02]

with kind of a sunlight thing, you know, a figure like coming out of it, you know. And at Sokoji, there was a... We had an auction or something like that. Not an auction, but a sale of... You know, a lot of painters were there at the time. And the painters contributed paintings for a fundraiser for Sokoji. And I put in that painting. And when I came into Suzuki's office one time, he had hung up the painting. He had hung up that painting, you know, which was probably the only painting he had hung up. And I didn't say anything to him about it. He didn't say anything to me, but I could feel that he saw in it, you know, that dark and the light.

[46:07]

The expression of the light and darkness. Yeah, yeah. And I think that was, you know, the closest, my most... The thing that I was really working at the most was the light and the darkness. Oh, interesting, interesting. Yeah, right. And so, and I realized that that affinity, that close affinity to the practice, you know. What I was trying to express is what the practice is expressing. Yeah. So when I read the Sando Kai, you know, I read it much later, actually. We didn't have the Sando Kai until 1970. Yeah.

[47:08]

When Tatsugami Roshi introduced it to us. But I was intuitively looking for some practice that expressed that. Oh, okay. Because I was expressing that through my painting. But this is all unarticulated. Huh? This would have been unarticulated. This is just something quietly inside yourself. Well, I don't know if it's unarticulated or not because I like painters like Rembrandt and Daumier and Rousseau. And, what's his name? I have no clue. Well, he's an American painter. He has his boat on the ocean. With the moon. He was a kind of recluse, you know.

[48:25]

He painted over the painting over and over again. This boat, ship on the moon, on the sea, you know, with the moon. It's his painting. It leaves my mind. But his paintings were also a big influence on me. He was a 19th century painter who lived into the 20th century. 19th century. Late 19th century. From the east coast, Maine, I think. Writer. You don't know writer? How do you spell it? R-Y-D-E-R. Remember his first name? No. That's pretty good. I remember his last name. That's very good. That's a good clue.

[49:27]

We don't have any name at all. It's hard to look it up. It's hard to spell it. We don't have any name at all. Well, those painters who were working with dark and light actually were... Were the ones that interested you. The ones that interested me. Although, I didn't always paint that way. But, that was actually my... So, what you involved... What your interests involved was the interest in dark and light. Right. And that was my... That was my spiritual expression. You know the fellow who came to the studio, Michael Killigrew? That's his picture. He's an artist also. And so, that was a theme that he worked with for a long time. Dark is covering the light. Yeah. The light is always there. Right. Dark is covering the light. Manifestation.

[50:30]

Manifestation. Breakthrough. Manifestation. Yeah. Of the light. Yeah. Because light and dark are the most interesting things to work with. Why is that? Well, because they're the fundamental things of our life. Fundamental aspects of our life. Right. They express a fundamental reality in that. Yeah. According to these radiations and interactions of dark and light. And, you know, I always liked dark music. I always liked light music too, but... What key examples? Well, you know, like when music goes into the minor keys. It's dark. Or it's like something C major or something. It's bright. Yeah. Four flats or E flats, you know.

[51:32]

Jewish music is all flats. Yeah. Not all flats. Well, Jewish music... It's mostly like an E flat. Yeah. It's awful. It's awful. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Jewish music, I always had an affinity for that. Did you? Oh, yeah. What did you listen to? What did you like? I liked the chanting in the synagogue a lot, you know. When it's done well. Even when it's not done well, you know. I also like Middle Eastern music. All Middle Eastern music, whether it's Jewish or Arabic or whatever. What did you like about it? They both have that quality of soulfulness.

[52:35]

Yeah, there's a deep expression that comes from a full being, kind of a crying out in a musical, interesting way. Full use of voice to express. It's not just sentimental. Right. It comes from a lot of misery and pain. You hear the human experience. You hear the experience of a human at heart as expressed, whether it's just superficial emotion and style. Yeah. It's real. Right. At first, I didn't like jazz because I thought it was superficial. You know. But then, as I listened to it and got more into it, I realized that it also, not all jazz, but the best jazz comes from that place, too. I really would love to hear some rendition of In C.

[53:45]

Of what? Oh, In C. Yeah. If you have a tape. I've asked you about this before. I would love to hear something that you have. At one time, when you played it, you taped it, right? Yeah. I think there was a record that came out, and I'm not sure if I have the record or not. I might have it. I'd love to hear it. As a matter of fact, my name would come up. Your name is on there. You listed as a player in that. This is like in the turn rather than early. I'd love to look around for it or something. I'd love to hear it. It'd be interesting as we talk, but to hear some music like that, it'd be interesting to look. It'd be evocative. Right. In those days, I was also learning. When I was 25, I started playing music. 20. No, a little earlier than that. 23. Something like that. And so we knew these musicians,

[54:51]

some very good musicians, who all lived on Potrero Hill, mostly, and we were playing improvised music. We just improvised without a theme or anything. And Bill Spencer was a wonderful piano player and our friends and acquaintances. And Terry Riley, I don't remember him playing with us. He may have, but he was associated. And I remember meeting him on Potrero Hill someplace, and he had a motorcycle. Here? No, Terry, yeah.

[55:53]

And he said, I'm a composer. And I thought, I've never heard anybody say that. I could hear people say, I'm a musician, but this young guy, he was in his 20s, early 20s, and to say, I'm a composer, just sounded really strange to me. But he just spent all his time working in music. And he and I used to play a little bit. What instrument did he play? Oh, he played the piano, but he also would pick up anything and play the flute a little bit. I remember we would place the middle parts of, the middle voices of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, one of them, I can't remember which one. But just the two middle, the middle voices, you know, that, and just to,

[56:57]

and enjoy just that portion of it, you know. And there were these guys around who played with him, but they couldn't play with each other because they kind of played different kinds of music. There's a saxophone player, and I think a clarinet player, but I'm not sure, a bass player maybe. And I played, at that time I was playing the recorder, and he was playing the piano. So in order for all these guys to play together, he invented in C, because any kind of musicians could play it, you know, without, it was a very simple kind of theme which everybody played in different intervals. Then I remember one time,

[58:03]

he had just come back from North Africa, and he brought some jalapos, a lot of jalapos, which are these North African hoods with coats, you know, with hoods. And he got us to playing at this college in Aftos. There's a college down there, and as you go down Highway 17, there's this college. Oh yeah, I've been there. Anyway, we were doing a performance there. So many years ago, God, interesting, God. And there was one old guy in the audience. An audience of one person.

[59:04]

And we had smoked grass, you know, and we had jalapos on, and we played in C. I saw Terry recently, when I saw him at this teacher's conference, he came and played one evening, you know, it was entertainment. And I was talking to him, and I said, do you remember when we played at the college? And he said, I don't remember that. Which kind of disappointed me, because I did remember it. And it was kind of, that was like our first performance, actually. An audience of one person. He remembers the bigger performances of all the other musicians. Right. That was our first one. That was your first one. Yeah. You began at the beginning. The audience of one person. As long as you have one person, you have an audience. What? As long as you have one person, then you have an audience. Yeah.

[60:06]

That's right. I think the guy didn't like it. The audience of one, and he didn't like it. No chance of getting a mixed review. Mixed review is funny. There's so many things that happened, you know, to recall, but it's probably a good thing I can't recall them. But I, at that time, when I was living at Hillhaven, you know, and I can remember these guys, they were, you know, some, a lot of junkies, and people died. From chunk, overdoses. That's right. Overdoses, you know. Yeah. And I remember George, when I almost died in our apartment, somebody had given him,

[61:07]

every once in a while, you know, he'd shoot up a little bit, you know, he wasn't a junkie, but he'd shoot up, and the stuff he got was really bad, and he was turning blue, you know, and his wife and I just kind of saw him through it all night, you know. And he finally pulled out of it, but, you know, touch and go there. And I remember these guys, wonderful people, you know, great guys, dying, you know, and not having any place to go, not having any future, you know, just simply stuck in this... with the drugs and the... degenerate way of life, you know. So what do you think there was in you? I wanted to... I had, you know, do something to help these people, you know.

[62:13]

And I also had my own spiritual life that was awakening, you know, and I gradually drifted off toward that. But then, by that time, I was driving a taxi cab, and kind of getting out of that. Although, it's still there. I don't think I ever... I was still driving a taxi when I went to Tsukiji. And my friend Daniel Moore, who was a poet, and I tell you about that. And you want to talk about something else, though? He took a taxi. Until... Wait.

[63:02]

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