Chapter Five
Mike was about to choose door number one, or was it door number two, or three, or four or more. The scene on the Strip was seamy, there is no debate. Pop culture was changing, experimentation in music, drugs and sex were keeping beat with the incessant movement of the times. Dutchess and Olivia were the first, but hardly the last of women Mike would be involved with who shared his own taste in women. East coast, west coast, there were a bevy of bi-caostal bi-sexual Eves that held out the forbidden fruit to the young Adam from the midwest, and he found in taste test after taste test, that the fruit of these Eves tasted just as good as anyone elses. It was these experiences that helped him mold his tolerance for differences in people later in life, a live and let live, laissaize faire outlook that blended fine with the do your own thing Sixties. In fact, it's those very varied differences that rolled his rock. Mikes life would transform itself into a colorful bachanal carnival and a carnal circus of sideshow belly dancers, Camptown ladies, and clowns. literally, as I will introduce the reader to one in the wink of finger poked eye, jugglers, mimes, barkers, sawdust, and overweight .25 cent peep show ladies with pink hair and purple eye shadow in too tight corsets, looking for all the world like Warhol's Divine or Joe Delasandro in full drag. In general, he was surrounded by a cast of mysterious Russ Meyer misfits.
L.A. is the perfect place setting at the ball of retro glitz. Restaurants shaped like Derby hats. It was home to Tail of the Pup hotdog stands, originally opened in 1946 in a Googie-hiem era of form, function and art-chitecture. Capital Records, a sky rising building standing tall, phallically erect like a stack of sexy buttermilk pancakes, or vamping vinyl .45's. Graumans Chinese opened in 1924 just two years after Graumans Egyptian theater opened to boffo crowds. A Jewish prince named Sid Grauman was the Moses who led the celluloid masses out of the desert and into the golden age of epics and Lombard and Flynn Then there was Jack in the Box with it's talking head-ball, along with the brothers MacDonald who launched themselves from golden arches. It was fast food, fast times, fast talk and hustle and bustle. The magic of the kingdom of the Magic Kingdom was too much to fight, and Mike wanted to go to...dare I say...Disneyland. Teacups and Mad Hatters and captains with hooks. A fantasyland of cowboys and the future all mixed into one. The destination of the American family and the realization of the dreams of children everywhere, even those who lived on and off on the streets. Giant castles, Mouseketeers and Mousekettes with rubber ears, and Mickey himself leading the band with Jimmy Dodd in tow followed by Darlene and Annette. It was home to Spin and Marty, Corky, a girl, and a dog named White Shadow, and a drummer named Cubby. It was all to cozy, a must see, standing room only. Thats when Mike, formerly Mickey met Mary, the clown......the Lady and the tramp.
I told you there were real clowns, and Mary was just that. Mike had been walking down the street, when he walked past a small ice cream parlor near Pandora's Box nightclub (famous in 1966 as the flashpoint of the riots on Sunset Strip. (Yes, there was a movie about it and the Stephen Stills song, "There's Something Happening Here") Back to the story....there was a juggling mime performing outside the parlor much as a snake oil medicine show shill or a hawking barker would at a traveling carnival that sets up in parking lots across the country, or the barking hawkers outside the strip clubs lining Columbus Ave. in North Beach. She, the clown was female, a novelty at the time, who wore green corduroy pants, just a little short of the ankles, a red shiny shirt, the like of which he had never encountered before, luminescent, a blazing fireball of nuclear flash-flame red in the sunlight, and colorful balls juxtaposed stop-action in the air with the blue sky as a theatrical backdrop. Music played from inside the parlor, and on occasion she would leap into the air not missing a beat or a ball falling to the ground. On her head was perched one of those Chico Marx hats, and the clown emeritus, Emmett Kelly himself must have done her makeup. It was a reverse negative of a minstrel blackface, a silver oxide manipulated whiteface with big sad eyes. Maybe it was the grass and mescaline he had dropped, but to him, it was a holy vision of the Unholy Ball Juggling Virgin Mary Madonna of Ciudad de Los Angeles. Beat that Lourdes!
Fascinated, transfixed, he stood, she leaped, jumped, twisted, turned, and juggled. The art of this peculiar pedestrian circus act was an undiluted undulating dillusion festering with colorful imagery of a big top extravaganza replete with an Asian elephant parade, elastic ladies with short sparkling costumes precariously perched and perfectly balanced on the sinewy backs of galloping tassle-topped Arabian equine hosts as they raced around periously on the inside perimeter a ring...pipe organ music stolen from a roller rink in some small town in Iowa played on as children gorged on cottoncandy and popcorn...all this for the price of admission, and Mike had a drug induced ringside seat.
Mary controlled her juggled balls, and they responded to her obediently in flight, as though they were trained seals or a Roman slave under the whip of it's Mistress while in her charge, the balls gently floated in slow motion, three rotating at once, always airborn with another always ready to replace it's space in time. The balls were yellow and red and blue and left tracer trails in their wake as they rose and fell smiling all the time, it seemed, directly at him. The clown noticed him too, and she smiled at the raggedy kid in tattered denim and field jacket with faded chevrons, sergeant I think it indicated. Got it at the Army-Navy surplus, for cheap. The crowd standing around the clown applauded when she ended her very athletic act of physical art and they dropped money in the hat she had worn and now shorn and set upside down on the topside of the sidewalk.(She was paid a couple of bucks for her performance in front of the parlor which attracted customers, but also allowed to pass the hat in the bargain).
She picked the hat up from the sidewalk, and deftly, as a magician might pull a white rabbit out of the thin air of a hat, removed the six dollars and seventy five centavo's that had been deposited by the pedestrian audience in exchange for her performance and walked over to Mike. She was as curious as he was and they were both curious about each other. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you like my act, but you didn't drop any money in the hat, but then again, you don't look like you have much to spare, and I certainly didn't hear you applaud, no, wait, may it was silent applause, like a zen one handed thing or if a tree fall in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound kind of applause, yeah, that's it," she laughed. Mike was suddenly smote, (God, I love that word, smote!) into Lot's wife turned to a block of salt. Mary leaned into him, and waved her hand in front of his eyes, checking to see if he was hypnotized or a foreign speaker who was blind. "I have a few dollars and wouldn't mind buying you a sundae if you want, but it will cost you. You'll have to applaud. Just kidding. Are you ok?" she said as he stared dumb of tongue. She peered into his eyes in case there was someone in there who might be home. "Hello, I said.." at which point he cut her off. "Oh yeah, I heard ya. Great idea, but let me get the ice cream, I have a little money, so don't worry about it. It's not a date or anything like that though," at which point she had to laugh. "Not a date at all. Well, did you enjoy my act? It's not much compared to real clowns but I love being a street entertainer. Helps me perfect my craft in public, in the real world, with real people standing in judgement. thumbs up, thumbs down, flipping the bird, it's ok, it's judgement, we all have to be judged, right? Especially by ourselves."
They sat at a booth inside, and switched their taste for sundaes and ordered milk shakes instead, one chocolate and one strawberry. Mike had learned to speak in the meantime and the conversation moved along as fast as an animated cartoon. "Perfect your act? I bet you're an actress..you been in any movies yet? Anything I may have seen you in?" This brought a bigger laugh. "No, no. I'm studying to be a clown," she proclaimed with all the conviction of Leon Trotsky proclaiming his loyalty to the revolution as an ice pick pierced his head.. "A clown? You'r e kidding?" She explained. She had been a street performer for about two years. She was a student attending UCLA and was working her way through college with these odd jobs, and her parents in Phoenix helping her out paying for part of her apartment and school. She also worked as a waitress at a local restaurant on weekends when the money was good.
Her objective was to graduate from college, journalism degree the object as a backup career, always need a spare tire you know, and then attend a clown college back east on the coast. A real clown college where she could study and master the craft and use her talents in artistic displays in more upscale circi in Europe and on the stage in productions. He had never met a real clown before let alone being attracted to one as he was trying to envision her face beneath the make up and her body, naked sans the Sherwood Forest garb getup. (He did have a fling once, later in life with a trapeze artist from a famous circus family that was in Detroit visiting that week, and the trapeze swing fling lasted the whole week while she was in town, then packed up her tent, Bedouin that she was and moved on west across the American landscape
Mary was not the usual street girl he had been running into and getting into for the past two years. In fact, she was not a street girl at all, by any means and any silly putty stretchng of the truth She was older, but not by too much, was going to school, had an actual apartment she stayed in, lease and all, was working at a legitimate enterprise and best of all, had a car. It was an a '63 v-dub that sputtered when it started and was as comfortable as a cocoon. She also had a college roomate and their lives were pretty much, well, organized as his was not, the antithesis. She had focus for the future, his was blurred...and they made a perfect puzzling couple.
He had been staying off and on with Dutchess and Olivia for close to six months, and was now in one of his invisible-man periods where he just spent each different night, sleeping at each different friends place, if the they had one, or on some of the accessable rooftops he knew as safe as Hernando's Hideaway, or in the back of empty delivery trucks usually parked at gas stations or at motels where they were vacant and empty all night long. When he met Mary he was roofing it, currently and cleaning up at gas stations, usually for a week, then back to Dutchess to get recharged, sell more drugs for spending money, laundry and a new outlook. He enjoyed his sojourns on the streets. In an interview he gave later in life he said it was the ultimate expression of personal freedom. No one knew exactly where you were at that time except for you and you were completely dependent on yourself. It was the same when riding Greyhound buses and trains cross country. You could be high in the Rockies aboard the California Zephyr and not a soul, except Amtrak knew where you were. You were floating in space under your own power.
He may have lived on the streets, but had to be clean. Scruffy? Sure. Dirty? Never. On one hitched hiked roadtrip back home in the east, the family was appalled at his long hair, his grandmother, however, gave what was the equivelent of the papal blessing, as was her role as Mother Superior and Queen Victoria all rolled into one role..."It is long, but it's soft and clean," she said and gave it a loving tug that made Mike laugh ....score one for grandma....the seal of approval had been bestowed. Even throughout his travels, Mike felt the Detroit umbilical chord. As Rod Serling once commented, "Every person needs a geographical womb to return to, if only in his mind...his hometown." In Rod's case, Binghamton, New York. In Mikes case, Detroit, Michigan. In your case? Only you are privy to that information.
Mike went to watch her perform at the ice cream place almost everyday. There was something special about her, and he couldn't nail it on the head. Maybe it's because she wasn't hard core, as Dutchess and some of the women in Hawaii who seemed to take relationships for granted and not using an emotional shovel to dig a deeper hole to plant the tree roots in to take a firm grasp. The first time he went to bed with her, sans clown cosmetics and gypsy clothing, it was a sweet and loving experience, not hurried, certainly, and afterwards just happy laying there beside her, not saying a word, neither wanting for anything else at that point. At times with Dutchess life was as rough edged as a Brillo pad, but times with Mary were soft, white cotton balls. If nothing else from living on the streets, friends, rooftops, parks and alleys, it was that he finally met gentleness and contentment. The mandala now had substance, and not mere illusion.
One day, it struck her. "Michael, have you been down to Disneyland yet? I know it's a ways from here, but I do have a car, and I think you'll have fun down there. I've been there about three times so know what we can avoid, and what's worth seeing. So what do you say? C'mon, they have teacups and castles, lot's of magic all around," she laughed. She had to drive anyway, as he didn't have a drivers license yet and she enjoyed playing tour-guide showing off her adopted town to her adopted lover. "Or do you just want to stay inside all day tomorrow? We don't have to go if you don't want to but it is one of my favorite places, my hidden cave so to speak, and want to share it with you, ok?" Mike (Mary prefereed Michael, as did he gradually, although guys called him Mike, that was ok too). "Alright, let's go, saddle up and ride them teacups," he blurted, once again, he was a kid. They had driven up to Malibu and even further north and found secluded beaches to build campfires on to watch as they listened to the surf as the sun was setting...the fire warming them and the pelicans dancing in the skies, swooping straight down like Stuka divebombers grabbing fish, the surf pounding that you could feel it in the sand beneath you. He loved amusement parks, like old Boblo Island in the Canadian waters south of Detroit and Edgewater Park in the north part of the Motor City. Roller coasters and cotton candy. But, hell, this was Disneyland, the Taj Mahal of fantasy and fun. They got to bed early at Mary's and the next day at daybreak had breakfast, smoked a joint and saved one hit of acid each for when they entered the Magic Kingdom of the animation gods.
Anaheim was a good distance down the road so they hurried to get there as early as possible. Opening day of Disneyland was a hurried affair and by all accounts a disasater. A record heat wave had hit the area and not everything was working properly in their rush to get the gates open in this former orange grove of 180 acres. The bugs had finally been worked out and by the Sixties it was as smooth an operation as a vasectomy.
Families from all points of the middle class compass descended on Walt's world, and Mike felt he was just a little out of place with the coifed and groomed. Mary had trimmed his hair, so even though long-ish, was at least neat, his clothes were fresh from the Salvation Army store where they shopped for shirts, jackets and jeans in moderately good shape. Mike even picked up an old backpack and grey sleeping bag that would be his "home on the road" as he called it for the next three years. Army surplus stores also served as the proletarian Macy's where you could get camping gear, stoves, tents, pocket knives and anything else you might need for bumming as he called it, or just carving an existence in the city on the streets. Mary had on a pair of pink pants (she looked best in those), yellow top and tennis shoes. The clown goddess would visit her subjects in Fantasyland incognito. They pulled into the parking lot, smoked a joint hurriedly and dropped a halt a hit of acid each, exited the car, and entered Steamboat Willie's House of Cartoon Horror!
Disneyland is not a cheap date. Once you get in though, the altered states visuals are astounding. Brightly dressed characters besiege you with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves dancing merrily down Main Street. Mickey the Mouse and Donald the Duck, (sounds like Mafia monikers) bouncing with a confident gait and Tinkerbell all a flutter in a flighty mood. The rides towering over all, roller coaster cars filled with laughter and terror at the same time, whistling in the graveyard fear, that kind of fear and joy that races the heart and keeps the pumping valves wide open full throttle. As the acid began to take hold, a runner bean vine on a pole hold, the vivid colors began to vibrate, and the machinery that powered the rides, were hidden from view but the whirring of moters could be heard, not a monotonous droning but the song of birds, finches, sparrows, little birds who would explode into cardinals bright red, and then explode again into bluejays and magpies, only to explode to beome giant condors who flew away from view across the San Bernardino mountains disappearing on the other side.
The teacups were a deviishly dervish delight. Spinning out of control, it was a chemical free for all free fall without a parachute. The lands were full to the brim with adventure and fantasy that Walt had taken great care to corve out. The only one Walt was stymied by was Tomorrowland. He once told an aide, "By the time we design it to where we think it's done, it will be outdated," so it was not a priority. Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Capt. Hook and by hook and crook, those damnable Lost Boys were Mike's favorite. The roller coaster holds it's own unique place in American culture. It began as an open railroad coal car towed up hill on tracks, passengers climbing into the box, and then racing insanely uncontolled down hill...unmotorized, unsupervised with caution and safety tossed into the landfill of propriety. Coasters were the fabricated adrenalin rush and made one feel the g-force with a sensory thrust that made you feel as though you were a set of drums being played by Ginger Baker in a rednition of "Toad." By Jiminy, Cricket, it's a wooden head puddin' head little boy puppet and an elephant big floppy ears and Old Yeller the dead dog. The castle itself rose from the mist of cotton candy that swirled around it, a London fog obscuring London Bridge.
The wonderful characters in costume, street performers, musicians, mimes, and Mary's own clown act and love of live performance left in indelible impression on Mike for life. It was a dazzling world of White Rabbits and Hobbits later tempered by the circus and carnivals and amusement parks that would formulate stage plays he wrote, directed and produced later in Detroit in the Seventies. He learned through theater and later during his radio broadcast career, where he specialized in theater of the mind, that you could create any persona you wanted to be at the time. He wrote a short story he adapted into a one act play for the stage in Detroit, called simply, "The Clown" in which the main character, the only character, had no speaking lines, but told a story with facial and body expressions alone. Mary eventually did go to clown school as Mike jokingly called it, and she did go to Europe where she enjoyed sucess in cabaret performances with a troupe of artists who traveled the continent.
\pard\sb100\sa100 They left Disneyland at the end of the day, satiated with happiness, and drove back up the road to Hollywood, leaving the gates of fantasy behind, and back to the concrete garden of reality, but somehow, a much more beautiful garden, and reality was looking better and better all the time. The lights of the city began to come on, and the street theater of the night was about to begin. Mike smiled at his new found knowledge. Mary had shown him that invisible pirates do exist and that clowns are no laughing matter, but something to be treasured, just as we treasure childhood and first loves.