17. Christmas 1968 Glen Ellen, California

We fled Glen Ellen in our Van made from stolen parts and headed to LA. Escaping the past to find a future to escape from.

Outside of LA, we were hungry, out of food and close to being out of gas. We stopped at a McDonalds and Wahoo, our full-blooded, Cherokee Indian, went into McDonalds and came back a few moments later and we were on our way. She had taken the container in McDonalds with money in it for some charity they were collecting money for. It was enough for us to get some food and petrol to continue on our way. I realise that by revealing this tidbit of info that it would harm my chances of running for President of the United States or even for that matter Governor of California – but then again, as a good actor there may still be a chance to run for or from some public office in one of the states. I would have to appear on Oprah or David Letterman or Springer or some such show and say that I had changed – even though even my neighbour’s dog knows I am the same as I was forty- years ago.

Americans are a forgiving lot – because they are Christians and that is what Christians do. Of course, if there was sex with wandering strangers involved I would be forgiven even quicker because Americans forgive the stray fuckers first and foremost. As long as they are having sex with the opposite gender and the same species or appropriate electronic devices.

We picked up a hitchhiker who took us to the ten-bedroom mansion on the corner of Hermosa and Ocean Street that we were to live in for the beginning of 1969. (looking now on Google Maps there is an apartment building there in its place) There were a few people living there when we arrived and by the end of that first night, we had filled the house with our group from Glen Ellen.

As these times were quickly lived and hazy at the best of times, I do not recall how we got furniture, but we all managed to get beds. Maybe there were already beds there because I do not remember going out and getting any.

The living room never contained any furniture the whole time we were there. It was just a large empty room. In a large, what I would imagine to be a dining room, there was a record player. We had a handful of records, no more than five or six that got played over and over.

The one record I recall that received the most exposure was the 1966 Cream31F album, ‘Fresh Cream’ with the great 1960s classics: ‘Wheels of Fire’ and ‘Crossroads’ by Eric Clapton (guitar & vocals), Ginger Baker (drums), Jack Bruce (bass & vocals).. The songs that got the most play were ‘Spoonful’ and ‘White Room’.

Thursday, February 09, 2006; yesterday afternoon, in the class I teach (Oral speech and presentation) at State University of New York, Albany, I was showing my students a page online – we were having a discussion about evidence in preparation for their Information Speech and I was on some conspiracy site, Rense.com – to show how wanky the information there is and I saw a story that said that the 1960s rock group, Cream, was getting back together to do a record or show or some thing or the other and to my surprise, though it is obvious why, none of my students had ever heard of the group Cream, or any of the people in the band, including Eric Clapton. It just goes to show that we do live our lives in our own little time warps. A few decades later and no one shares anything of what we thought or believed in or listened to. My students are in their late teens and just a few out of the thirty kids are just beginning the trek through their twenties.

That was the extent of the furniture in the whole house, beds, and a record player.

There was rarely food in the kitchen. I have no idea what we ate. I remember that when someone did make food or brought food into the house it was gone quite quickly. One thing there was always plenty of was drugs, mainly LSD, Cannabis products, mescaline, and crystal Methedrine – or speed – (Methamphetamine) and a large variety of mood- altering substances. We shared appliances in the administration of many of these fine products and now thirty-five years later I have the consequences of those days to deal with32F. (Had, now that new wonder drugs have cleared up Hepatitis C in my body) It was a relatively good period in my life, and I have few memories of that time except that there were a lot of females I spent time with – none of whom I recall more than as passing shadows that shared a fleeting-second of a lustful dream with me in a drugged induced haze.

I come close to remembering someone I was with at that time – I can almost sense one of the many hers I danced and loved and breathed with and almost relive the experience or conversation but then like waking from a dream that is impossible to recall any more than a feeling I see no more. Do any of
them remember me or was I too just a taste of the potpourri of love that was available in the 1960s?
Who were these people in another lifetime?

Maybe a wife, or a husband, a lover, an enemy I killed at the border? My mother from 1492 or my daughter of the early part of the first century of our currently passed Piscean millennium when I was an Essene and followed the dude that was to be created as the World-Savor for the Piscean Age.
Or is this it?

Just coming into this life as a blank slate and everyone is available to fuck that we want to then we do, and we never interact with that person on any level ever again just as we never did before. And all the self-righteous people sneering at us, saying we need to stay with one person, or regret it for the rest of our life. Actually, anyone who does stay with anyone for his or her whole life regrets having only had the one morsel of love to snack on. I do recall spending a few days with one girl that was from the mid-west I think, and we decided to go to a commune and live and have children together and I was going to write novels, and she was going to do some gardening. But we never got past a few days together then there was someone else. One girl I was with was going to the University of LA and I even attended a class with her. I thought I was in love with her but later in the week, I went to find her in our large house, and she was in bed with someone else, so I had to find someone else to be in love with. I have heard people talk about how shallow Californians are, but they are not. They are in fact very sincere, very deep, and extremely giving and loving though only for a few days then when someone else comes along with a better story they go off with that person or group. What I do enjoy about the California mindset is the enthusiasm that is involved with each new thing and that is good if one knows that the excitement is just fleeting. I suppose I am a California person no matter where I am.

the next section is 18. 1969

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