Sunset Strip '69

Walking Down Sunset
June 27, ‘69


When I crawled through Mark’s window, it felt good to be back out on the street again. The sun was shining, and even the exhaust fumes smelled better than Mark’s room. I walked a half-mile or so to the Hollywood freeway. On the hot concrete with my thumb out, traffic noise everywhere, and the sun now less of an ally then when I first hit the street, I began to wonder why there were so few cars using the on-ramp. Just then a car whizzed past me. At the bottom of the ramp, it came to a screeching halt, and reversed back to where I was standing. Just before it reached me, it came to another screeching stop. I wasn’t sure if I needed a ride that bad, but when the driver said, “Get in,” I responded by doing just that. Sitting in the car, I thought to myself, “What the fuck, you only live until you die!” Little did I know how close I was to becoming a prophet.

Looking for words to make an uncomfortable situation more comfortable, I said to the unshaven, skinny, driver, “That was quite a stop.” He looked at me and replied, “That was nothing, watch this!” Without hesitation he pushed the gas peddle to the floorboard and I was thrust back into my seat. There was nothing I could do but hold on tight as the car sped down the ramp and the driver lost control, sending the car into the lamppost that demolished the passenger side of the car. I was bruised and shaken as I climbed out the driver’s side. The little man began running around his car, screaming “My car. My car.” Then, when he realized his large quantity of pills (probably speed) was scattered all over the floor of the car, his screaming turned to obscenities. He then reached into the car and grabbed several bags of marijuana from behind the driver’s seat, and ran up the exit ramp. I also ran up the ramp, but on top, I turned in the opposite direction. After that, I made my way to another on-ramp and hitched a ride back to Hollywood.

On the Strip, one of the few places you could rest without being hassled by the pigs was at a bus stop. I was sitting on a bench when I met a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl from Kentucky. She was being very friendly, and then she asked me to move to the far end of the bench. As it turned out, she, like me, was not waiting for a bus. She was working, and she didn’t want me interfering with her chances of scoring a John. She told me she had been working the streets for about six months and when her pimp ripped her off she began to work bus stops and anyplace else she could attract tricks. She told me, “There’s no glamour in it, but it pays bills, and anyway I’m doing okay, better than most in fact.” As we were talking, she was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, showing a lot of skin. When a car pulled up, and one of the two men in the car stuck his head out the window and asked her if she needed a lift she said, “Sure,” and climbed into the backseat of their car. Before she closed the door she looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be alright.” She was gone in an instant. It took a lot longer than that before the empty feeling in my gut went away.

Both Mark and Vinny felt guilty about my getting bad dope the night before, so after I met up with them on the Strip, they promised me I would be especially happy with tonight’s dope. Vinny came through when he scored a four-way tab of acid. Mark and Vinny didn’t want to mix the acid with the reds (they were already doing downers), so Vinny handed me the acid, but advised me to do only half. I dropped the whole tab and got off really well. It was constant hallucinations and colors.

My perception was definitely altered, but the people I met on the Strip were unusual by any standards. There was the burned out, longhaired warlock who persisted in putting “double whammies” on everybody who refused to say “Hi” to him. There was the dude dressed in a long black cape with matching wide brim black hat who preached revolution. He told me, “The revolution starts at the Free Church in the morning.” He then opened his cape and I saw his guns, knives and hand grenades strapped to his body. “Weapon’s will be distributed tomorrow,” he said. I didn’t go to the church, nor do I remember hearing anything about a revolution taking place; but maybe it did. There was also a priest who chained himself to a wooden cross and then chained the cross to a lamppost. I was told that for two days he had been without food or water. He was protesting some cruelty, but I don’t remember which cruelty.

Oh, and I don’t want to forget to mention the distraught girl who I somehow helped. She was with another girl who was trying to console the uncontrollably crying girl. When I walked past the two of them the one crying grabbed my arm and reached for my beads. They were my Buddhist prayer beads. Struggling to hold back her tears, she asked me if she could hold my beads. When I handed them to her she clutched them and began chanting, “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.” After she placed the beads back around my neck, she looked up at me, smiled, and kissed me on the cheek. These were just a few of the interesting people I met one night while walking down Hollywood’s Sunset Strip...

...My budget concerns did not restrict the evening's activities. Indeed, my empty pockets necessitated the beginning of a new experience, panhandling. My panhandling experience, however, got off to a rocky start.

The three of us agreed to panhandle until we had dope money. As we were walking to the onramp to begin hitching to Hollywood we came upon a man pushing his stalled car. The three of us jumped in to help. When we got the car to a gas station, the
grateful fellow offered to pay us for our help, but I refused the money. "It is wrong to refuse money if you needed the money for dope," at least that's what Vinny said. Vinny was probably right, but I wouldn't admit it. I guess I got caught up in the knee-jerk response of not expecting a reward for helping someone in need. That
knee-jerk response started a nasty argument between Vinny and I. The argument didn't go away until Mark agreed with me. I guess Mark's Bostonian upbringing got the better of him. Anyway, Vinny backed down and we were off to the Strip to begin panhandling in earnest.

Once on the Strip, we were each on our own. I was very timid at first, but I caught on fast. I was surprised to find the street hippie's generosity was far superior to the thrill-seeking tourist's. There was one lady, however, after giving me a ten-minute lecture on working instead of begging, who donated twenty cents to
the cause. It was Vinny who put the meat in the stew, so to speak, he scored five dollars for making a drug contact for a stranger. Between the three of us we came up with enough money to score three tabs of acid, two barrels of reds (three hits to a barrel) and a gallon of wine.

We dropped the acid first. Walking along the Strip, stoned on acid, was not as much fun as it had been the night before. I guess even Hollywood can get somewhat old. Things changed, however, when we ate the reds. It was a down trip big time. My consciousness got all fuzzy after the reds started coming on. I do remember, though, that the three of us agreed we couldn't remain on the Strip. It was difficult to walk and we did not want to spend the night in jail, so we needed a safe place to trip, and Vinny knew of a place three miles away. Lucky for us we got a quick ride. In the car that picked us up, there were three female hitchhikers already. Vinny got
in the front seat with one girl and Mark and I climbed in the back with the other two. I squeezed in against a very curvaceous blond who, as it turned out, was on her way to the Whisky-A-Go-Go to be with Noel Redding, Jimmy Hendrix's base player. Apparently, she met Redding the night before while he was performing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. Pressed tightly up against the girl who was about to become a
groupie to one of the world's best known rock bands was, how shall I say, stimulating. The driver of the car cut short my fantasies when he dropped us off at Madison Heights (the Equitable Insurance building); by that time we were all wasted.

Vinny, Mark, and I spent the rest of the night lying on the grass (with some other people who were also using the place for a sanctuary), drinking wine and staying out of trouble. My last memory of the evening was sitting on the ground next to an Oklahoma cowboy. He was wearing a buckskin jacket, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and he
even smelled like horses. He was talking, but I wasn't listening until he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a dirty wrapper filled with something. From his other pocket he pulled out a jack knife and cut into the white, gooey, smelly, substance. He skewered a chunk on the end of his rusty blade, and gleefully offered it to me. He said, in the finest Texas drawl, "Here partner, try some of
this." Unable to stand, ripped on acid, drunk on wine, a strange food thrust under my nose, I opened my mouth and took a it in. An explosive rush of blue cheese hit my taste buds, my first taste of blue cheese. I laid flat on my back as the cheese slide down my throat. That was my last conscious memory. The next morning I found
myself waking up at the foot of Mark's bed. Actually, I awoke in the afternoon and even though I wasn't feeling good, I figured it was time to leave L.A. I didn't think I could survive another night anyway.