A Short Talk with Linda Kelly, Author of the book, Deadheads

My first New Year’s show!

Just yesterday I found out that a new independent documentary is coming out about the Deadhead community. San Francisco director Lonnie Frazier’s movie, “Box of Rain”, is available to watch by streaming it on Vimeo and tells the story of the Grateful Dead fans through her own experiences and those of her friends and others in the community.

Not long ago I read Linda Kelly’s book, Deadheads. Kelly herself wasn’t a Deadhead in the sense that some people view them. She attended some shows but didn’t follow the band around. She did, however, click with the vibe of the music, musicians and community so much so that she decided to gather memories, information, stories and more from people who either were Deadheads in the real sense of that term or served the group in some way (musically, providing food, drugs, etc. or simply by being friends with them).

I was a Deadhead for a brief period. I first saw them in 1985. I was twenty years old and like Linda had no prior interest in the band. However, it only took that first show to make me realize that there was something going on there, not only with the music but within the fan base. A late bloomer, I also smoked my first joint at that show even though I didn’t get high. Undeterred, I proceeded to immerse myself in the Grateful Dead and drug experience. Only two weeks after my first show (at Irvine Meadows in Irvine, CA) I was on my way to Palo Alto for two shows at the Frost Amphitheater. And just like that I was a Deadhead.

With the third and final book in my trilogy completed and being readied for release I realized that I had several characters who might qualify as Deadheads or at least dedicated Grateful Dead fans. In the second book a group of friends travel to Berkeley for a six show run to celebrate a marriage. In the third book many of those same friends gather in Golden Gate Park to mourn the untimely death of Jerry Garcia. Although I only spent a short time as a Deadhead myself, the band, the music, the atmosphere and vibe and the community left a lasting impression on me and I think of those years as some of the best of my life.

INTERVIEW WITH LINDA KELLY, AUTHOR OF DEADHEADS

L.V.S.: So, the Sex Pistols was your first concert.  That’s pretty amazing!  My first concert was Jefferson Starship & Heart in 1976.  My dad took me; I was 11.  After your first show were you hooked on live music?  What type of shows did you attend after the Pistols?

L.K.: TOTALLY hooked! My mama was very sick with cancer (for 5 years) and my older sisters took me to the Sex Pistols to try and cheer me up. Amazingly, it did as it made me forget about my sadness for a good couple of hours. All live music for me creates a sacred space where we can let go and connect to the energy of the cosmos, collectively. It’s very much to me like a vision quest or deep meditation.

Other shows: Tom Petty at Winterland, 1978, lots of shows at Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway (DEVO, Blondie, local punks), The Police, Iggy Pop, U2, Echo & the Bunnymen, so many amazing bands at the iBeam and Nightbreak on Haight … also the Kabuki Theater (now a real movie theater).

L.V.S.: When you met Jerry Garcia in New York were you already familiar with the Dead’s music?

L.K.: Yes, but when I was here in SF, before I split to NYC, I couldn’t stand the GD and all that damn hippie crap LOL. As mentioned in my book, I was dragged to my first GD show in 1985 by Blair Jackson (Dead enthusiast) at the Henry J. Kaiser, cuz he saw how depressed I was. Those shows DID make me happy for a bit. Coulda been the MDMA!

L.V.S.: That’s funny because I hated all of that hippie crap, too! I was into the Goth music scene right before my first Dead show. A friend of mine was a Deadhead and he kept raving on and on about them. He stuck a live cassette recording, a New Year’s Eve show, but I don’t remember from what year or where, into my tape player in my VW Bug and it got stuck in there! I couldn’t eject it and it kept playing in my car. I hated the music and yet I was forced to listen to it endlessly until I finally got the tape out of my deck. It was a precursor of days to come, I suppose!

L.V.S.: Reading your book, I just kept nodding my head along with these people’s experiences and descriptions.  Although I was only a Deadhead for a couple of years, I really threw myself into the whole thing.  We saw as many shows as we could in CA (north & south-52 in total).  I remember the parking lot scenes, the whole process for getting the online tickets (3 x 5 card ONLY!!), driving either my ’68 Bug or my roommate’s ’71 Bus.  I could particularly relate to the feeling of family and doing things that you wouldn’t normally do, like picking up hitchhikers or staying with strangers.  Why do you think that Deadheads were so trusting within the community?

L.K.: The lyrics! They suggest that we all have ups/downs, we are all human, we all have a dark/light side — so there is a common understanding, a knowing that Deadheads all share.

L.V.S.: What elements do you think have helped maintain the Dead’s ongoing dedication from their fans?  The community at large isn’t necessarily “there” anymore, but when you meet another fan generally something clicks between you. 

L.K.: Again, the lyrics, the vibe, the whole experience. It’s a tribe. It’s a communal, loving, accepting, anything-goes environment. Take care of each other, be kind, love one another.

L.V.S.: Yes. I remember in particular a concert at Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland. There was a nice man that we ended up sitting next to up in the bleachers. He got up to leave before the show ended and we were shocked. He explained that if he didn’t leave right then he would miss the last bus back to San Francisco where he lived. We had set up camp earlier in the day in the hills above Oakland but felt a really creepy vibe up there and weren’t sure that we were going to return that evening. The man, who was a little older than us, offered to let us stay at his apartment if we would drive him home after the show. We did and he saw us off the next morning, taking us to breakfast first. Later he came down south for some event and we met him for dinner. People were like that within the community. You could trust them.

L.V.S.: Do you think that there are other bands that generate a similar dedication, community and family scene?  I recently became a big Ween fan and I have been stunned by the similarities within their fan community and the Dead’s. I feel like a gained a country-wide family within the Ween community. People open their hearts and homes and are so kind and dedicated. It’s very similar.

L.K.: I LOVE Ween!!!!! Yes, same vibe. I’d say perhaps Patti Smith fans, again, people KNOW her songs, her words, her message.

L.V.S.: So, tell me a little about your current project, Haight Street Voice.  You’re back living in your native San Francisco, in the Haight.  What do you hope to accomplish with your magazine and other projects?

L.K.: Community. Shining a light on EVERYONE who wants to be heard. A voice for the people. It’s AMAZING to come full circle after 7 years in NYC and live right here in the Haight where I lived when attending SF State and studying journalism with Ben Fong-Torres (who just last week gave me and HSV a shout-out on Moonalice Radio!). Connection. Creativity. There is nowhere like this place in the world. It’s magical and deserves to be documented. And to be working with Dr. David E. Smith of Smith Family Foundation is just beyond amazing. And? Stanley Mouse is coming down for an art exhibit in June in “my” pop-up space! Full circle with some of the people who were THERE when it all exploded in 1965. Grateful indeed!

You can follow Linda on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HaightStreetVoice and subscribe to Haight Street Voice Magazine online at https://www.patreon.com/haight_street_voice/posts. Her book, Deadheads, is available on Amazon but you can buy autographed copies directly from the author along with groovy trucker hats at haightstreetvoice@gmail.com! Linda’s website is http://www.haightstreetvoice.com. Please contact her for more information!

A Story in Memory of Woodstock, Fifty-One Years Ago

Going to the Woodstock Music festival was always a fantasy of mine, but since I was only four years old at the time, it wasn’t in the cards!  However, when I wrote the first book in my trilogy, I sent several characters to upstate New York to experience it for me!

In honor of that most important festival and cultural event, here is an excerpt from Red, White & Blues:  Book One…

Woodstock Music Festival, New York.  Pete and Sandy, Haven and Julie and Sarah have abandoned Haven’s car somewhere out on the long stretch of road leading into the festival.  They carry blankets and bags of food, water and clothing as they walk with the hundreds of others who have done the same.

The long drive from California to New York has afforded Sarah a lot of time to think.  She hadn’t realized how oppressive Mike had become or how on edge she was.  He actually made her nervous and she feels more relaxed being away from him despite the guilt she feels for leaving him alone with Maura and Toby.

Her life has taken such a strange path since she had met Mike in Wyoming. It had only been two years, but so many things have happened, that she hasn’t been able to stop and think about any of it until now.  Her feelings for Mike have changed, she realizes.  She feels more like his wife of ten years than someone who had barely gotten to know him before the war.  She knows now how exhausted she has become.  Mike is draining her both physically and emotionally.

She thinks about the dreams she had had before getting onto the back of Mike’s motorcycle two years earlier.  Many of them have been realized:  the separation from her family and the South; the autonomy of living the way she wants; her job at the bookstore; the parties, friends, drugs, sex and concerts.  But her relationship with Mike seems to be creating a life that is the opposite of all that.  It seems that they are heading down a path that she could follow almost instinctively but is fighting desperately to resist.  She doesn’t want to end up like her mother, taking care of a drunken man, feeling afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, feeling alone all the time.

By the time they all arrive within the festival limits, it is late Friday night.  They have missed most of the acts for the day but spread their belongings out and stake an area of ground as their own.

In the morning, Sandy arises, a sleeping bag wrapped around her body.

“Wow,” she yawns.  “We’re actually here!”

Pete smiles, runs a hand through her mess of blond curls.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Creedence plays today,” Haven says.  “Too bad Mike isn’t here.”

Sarah winces.  She really has been trying to forget all about Mike for the weekend.  She slides out her sleeping bag and rolls it up.

They all decide to try and get closer to the stage today, but as the sun rises, so does the humidity.  Many people have stripped down to their underwear or nothing at all to cool off in a nearby pond.  Pete and Sandy decide to do the same.  They remove their clothes and trot down to the water.  Many people ask Sandy when her baby is due and she fills with happiness.  Pete beams with pride before dunking his head under the cool water.

“Well!  Well!  Fancy meeting you here!”

Sandy turns and sees Keith Burke, the owner of Moonstone Books, standing on the shore.  Suddenly, she is embarrassed, and drops down into the water.

“Keith!  Hi!”  Sandy calls, and then turns to Pete.  “Pete!  Look who’s here!”

Pete waves.  “Keith!  Wow, man!  It’s a small world even out here!”

Completely unashamed, Pete walks over and shakes Keith’s hand.

“So,” Keith says, looking over at Sandy.  “Is it yours?

“Yeah!  She’s due in November.”

Keith, seeing that Pete is happy about says, “That’s great, man!  Really!”

Sandy continues to stay submerged.  It is different to be naked among acquaintances.

“Where are you guys camped out?” Keith asks.

“Nowhere,” Pete says.  “Anywhere!”

“Well, we’ve got some tents near here and plenty of room.  Who else is with you?”

“Haven and Julie,” Pete says.  Keith knows that Sarah has come.  He is her boss, after all.

“It’s up to you, but we’ve got the room.  I mean, you’d all have to share a tent, so if you don’t mind balling in front of your friends, then you’re welcome to it!” Keith laughs.

The tent camp that Keith’s group has set up is small and comforting.  Although they had initially come for the music, the communal feel of the entire event, and especially Keith’s group, feels so good that Pete and Sandy, Haven and Julie and Sarah end up spending most of their time listening to the music from a distance.  Occasionally, a small band of people will walk up closer to the stage area, but there is always a nice group back at the camp.  They smoke dope, cook up vegetable stew, play with the dogs and the few small children and make love in the surrounding tents.

Sarah is glad that Keith has found them.  He has become a good friend to her over the last two years.  With Santana playing in the distance, she and Keith sit by the fire and talk.

“I didn’t know you were gonna come,” she says. “You didn’t say anything when I told you I was goin’.”

“I know.  It was really last minute.  My friend over there, Alison, was going and she talked me into it.  I locked up the store and jumped in their bus!”

“I’m glad ya did!”

“Me, too!  Hey!  How come Mike didn’t come?  You two break up or something?”

“No.  He just didn’t want to.  With his cane and all, I guess he thought it’d be too much for him.”

Keith nods.  “It must be hard, huh?  How’s Mike doing?”

“Okay,” Sarah sighs.

Someone comes by and hands Keith a joint.  He takes a hit, and he and Sarah pass it back a few times.

“Mike drinks a lot,” Sarah confesses.  “I think he might be an alcoholic.”

“I guess I’d be drinking a lot, too, if I’d just come back from Vietnam,” Keith says.  “Does he ever talk about it?”

Sarah shakes her head.  “I don’t think he wants to.”

“Probably just wants to forget about it.  Probably why he drinks so much.”

Sarah stares into the flames.  “He’s a different person now.  I think he’d be happy just to be alone.  Maybe I shouldn’t go back.” She laughs to soften the sting.

“It’s that bad?”

“Oh, he’ll probably be fine in a while,” Sarah smiles.  “He’s only been back for a few months.”

Keith pushes a strand of hair from Sarah’s face.  “You wanna go in one of the tents?”

Sarah nods and follows Keith.  They lie down on a bed of sleeping bags.  He kisses her, runs his hands over her breasts.  She does not stop him.  She rubs his cock through his jeans while he unbuttons his shirt.  In a minute, they are fucking.  Sarah urges him to move faster, deeper.  She and Mike have only had sex a few times since he has returned.  It is an increasingly unpleasurable experience as she can feel Mike’s resistance and lack of interest.

When she and Keith finish, he pulls a joint from his shirt pocket and they smoke again.

“I needed that,” Sarah laughs.

Keith smiles.  He has developed strong feelings for her.

“Just let me know when I can be of service,” he says.

Twenty-five Years Ago We Lost Jerry

I was a Deadhead.  I came to it reluctantly in 1985.  A friend had been playing a live cassette in my 1968 VW Bug and it got stuck in my stereo, forcing me to listen to it over and over again.  At the time,  I was into all kinds of music and going to concerts by Iron maiden, Roger Waters, The Cure, Deep Purple, the Violent Femmes and The Firm while listening to a wide variety of other bands like the Germs, Black Flag, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and the Cocteau Twins.  I remember being so angry at Paul for getting that Grateful Dead tape stuck in my cassette player!  Eventually, I had it removed and with the subtle influence it must’ve had on me (as well as Paul’s enthusiasm, among a few other friends), I attended my first Grateful Dead show at Irvine Meadows on April 14, 1985.  I was twenty years old. We had general admission tickets, so we sat up on the lawn.  Someone must’ve passed us a joint and while my friend had smoked since high school, I never had.  I remember not feeling much of anything (people told me that that can happen on your first try).  However, something must’ve affected me because the following week, I was on the road heading up to Frost Amphitheater to see the Dead for the weekend.  We camped up in the hills at Portola State Park (I was also new to camping).  From that weekend until my last show at the Forum on February 12, 1989, I was a gung-ho, full-fledged convert.  We went to every show up and down the California coast, sometimes making a week-long camping trip out of it.  My experimentation with drugs continued (acid, mushrooms, marijuana) and my appreciation of the band’s music grew as did my love of the Deadhead scene and life.  Those short four years of my life were the best.  What crazy things we did (picking up hitchhikers, staying at strangers’ homes, camping in the middle of nowhere, accepting drugs from people we didn’t know and more), but we were young and open to new experiences and people.  I have so many great memories of those times and I still love the Grateful Dead’s music and spirit.  I still have all of my ticket stubs (fifty-two in all).

I remember hearing the sad news on August 11, 1995 about Jerry’s passing and while I didn’t attend the memorial celebration in San Francisco on August 13, I did write about it in the upcoming third installment of my Red, White & Blues series:

The news of Jerry Garcia’s death hits Sandy very hard.  She and Pete, along with Jimmy, had spent many fun-filled days and nights following the Grateful Dead around the state.  A scrapbook contains ticket stubs from Frost Amphitheatre in Palo Alto, Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, Ventura County Fairgrounds, the Oakland Coliseum, the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, the Long Beach Arena, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, even an isolated show at Boreal Ridge as well as beautiful mail order tickets for Chinese New Year and New Year’s Eve shows.  Sandy has such fond memories of camping or staying with Deadhead friends that they had made over the years; late nights eating at Denny’s while stoned on acid or mushrooms; buying t-shirts, stickers, handmade jewelry, food and clothing in the venue parking lots and the pure joy that the music brought to her.

“I heard,” were Jimmy’s first words when his mother called him.  “I’m fucking bummed, Mom.”

Jimmy told her about all the people who were spontaneously converging in front of the Victorian at 710 Ashbury as well as at the iconic street corner of Haight-Ashbury.  As the days progressed, more and more people crowded the area as well as Golden Gate Park where fans and mourners were camping, getting stoned and dancing to bootleg recordings of Dead shows.  The Internet began to fill up with remembrances, eulogies and impromptu memorial sites across the country.

On Saturday afternoon, an official memorial event is announced at a short press conference.  It will be held the following day at Polo Field in Golden Gate Park.  Jimmy calls his mother and she, along with Wes, Julie and Sarah, drive up to the city to pay their respects along with the thousands of others who were coming in from all over the country.

On Sunday morning, Jimmy, Theo, their baby, Lilith, and Jimmy’s ex, Stacy, with their daughter, Scarlet, join Sandy and the others in the park.  It is a sunny and beautiful day.  A drum circle consisting of surviving Dead members and others pounds out tribal beats while the faithful shake their bones nearby.  Guest speakers remember Garcia as fans leave flowers at an altar displaying a massive portrait of the man himself.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Sandy admits quietly.  “A whole fucking chapter of my life has ended.”

Wes takes her hand in his.  “It’s tragic.  He’ll be missed,” he says.

Sarah and Julie are less dramatic with their grief but are no less affected.  Wandering the park again and seeing all the young people in their tie-dyed t-shirts and hippie garb brings them all back to that time and place so long ago that they were lucky enough to be part of.  Seeing Jimmy with his two young daughters reminds Sandy of herself and Pete when they were both younger than Jimmy is today.

“Your dad and I used to come down here all the time,” she tells her son.  “God, what a time to be young!”

Jimmy wraps an arm around his mother’s shoulders.  “I love you, Mom.  I wish I knew you and Dad back then-we would’ve been pretty good friends, I think.”

“We sure would have!”

As the afternoon wears on, a high-quality sound system blasts out vintage Grateful Dead shows with crystal clarity.  Mourners play hacky sack, dance, buy t-shirts and other items from ad hoc vendors.  Around 5:00 p.m., the group of friends and family heads back to Jimmy and Theo’s apartment to reminisce, eat dinner and eventually sleep.

The Short-Lived Love Affair Between the Hippies and the Bikers

In the mid-1960s in San Francisco, the hippies had established a strong foothold in the community.  Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle and other areas had effectively been taken over by the influx of young people who were seeking a new way of life, free from the constraints, rules and norms of the previous generation.

At the same time, bikers like the Hells Angels were also firmly entrenched in the city and had been since 1953 when the San Francisco chapter was established. Taking a house at 719 Ashbury in the late sixties, they were in direct contact with the hippie population, which swarmed the neighborhood streets by this time.  Local musicians, the Grateful Dead, lived in a Victorian right across the street at 710 Ashbury.

Initially, the two groups shared a close bond.  Both considered themselves outside of society, living lives that were out of line with the norm.  Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, independence and a deep mistrust of authority, police and others created a shared understanding.  Several Hells Angels became celebrity figures in the community, including “Chocolate George” Hendricks, “Harry Henry” Kot, and Oakland members John Terence Tracy or “Terry the Tramp” and George “Baby Huey” Wethern, who provided the Haight with LSD.

In 1968, writer Tom Wolfe’s book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, documented the relationship between the hippies and Hells Angels, which began in 1965 when the club was invited to a huge two-day party out at Ken Kesey’s three-acre property in La Honda, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, a private and peaceful (usually) location with boundless beauty and plenty of  mystical and spiritual ambiance.

After introducing the bikers to acid, free love, music, DayGlo paint and other hippie trappings, an alliance was formed.  The partiers included many notable characters from the counter-culture including Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, journalist and writer Hunter S. Thompson, Neal Cassady, Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.  You’d think that these people would have about as much of a chance at blending together as oil and water, but despite the obvious polarity between the two groups, a bond formed that August that set off a short-lived coexistence.

There are several reasons why these groups came together and then just as quickly (two months later, the Oakland Hells Angels, led by Ralph “Sonny” Barger,  literally attacked the Vietnam Day Committee (VDC) during a large protest of the Vietnam War).  At odds with their anti-authority stance and outlaw lifestyle, the Angels were staunchly patriotic. The club had been formed in 1948, made up largely of returning servicemen from WWII, and thereafter became a sanctuary of sorts for veterans of all subsequent wars who came back from combat and service feeling lost, angry and in dire need of communing with a brotherhood of like-minded men as well as craving that adrenalin that war provided, for better or worse.

One reason that the two groups melded at Kesey’s party was because the counter-culture elite was made up of people who admired authenticity, an outlaw attitude, and disregard for authority and society’s imposed rules.  Kesey saw the Angels as the epitome  of what he preached as “real”; the Angels lived the way they wanted.  They did whatever the hell they wanted and didn’t care who didn’t like it.

Another reason this initial dance went off so splendidly was because the Hells Angels liked to party.  They liked sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and Kesey and his intellectual friends were offering it up to them  for the taking.  Under the influence of good acid, the two groups intertwined like old friends, reveling in the hedonism that the Angels embodied.

When the Angels agreed to attend the party up in La Honda, they were greeted by a large banner reading: “The Merry Pranksters Welcome the Hells Angels”, in red, white and blue lettering.  Police cars kept vigil outside the gate as the festivities commenced and didn’t interfere much.  If they had, they would have found the Angels (and others) gang-raping a young woman who by most accounts willingly participated in “pulling a train”.  The girlfriend of Neal Cassady at the time, she reportedly had become jealous of his flirting with poet Allen Ginsberg and sought to give him a dose of his own medicine, taking things a bit further for a more dramatic effect.

As the hippie culture began to derail in the late sixties (many were leaving for a communal life outside of the city by then), the relationship between the two subgroups dissipated.  After the incident with the VDC and the Oakland Hells Angels, hippies realized that the Angels, in fact,weren’t  their advocates, allies or even friends.  However, there was a huge difference between the Oakland Angels and the San Francisco Angels, some of whom were genuinely friendly and kind to the hippies.  In fact, member William “Sweet William” Fritsch had been a member of the Diggers with Emmett Grogan, Peter Coyote and Peter Berg, among others before becoming a Hells Angel.

Later, in 1969, Fritsch acted as a bodyguard of sorts to the Rolling Stones at Altamont, where the two factions came together and then clashed for a final time.  The Hells Angels had been hired as a security force for the free concert by the Stones, in part because they were known to be friendly with the San Francisco musicians of the day like the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and others.  Unfortunately, and for too many reasons that I won’t go into here, things didn’t work out as planned and the concert, which ended with a concert-goer being stabbed to death by a prospect of the San Jose chapter right in front of the stage, went down in the eyes of some as the event that put the last nail in the coffin of the 1960s.

In my novel, “Red, White & Blues:  Book One”, bikers and hippies come together and largely remain friendly.  Members of the fictional motorcycle club, the Souls of Liberty (SOL) are a mix of Vietnam veterans, thrill-seekers, lonely and disaffected souls and even a rebellious rich boy.  What keeps some of the members friendly with their hippie counterparts is the fact that their worlds intersected early on through a key member of the SOL before he had joined the club as well as when the group of friends re-locates from San Francisco to Monterey, CA.  A close bond develops between the Vietnam veterans in the club and the vets who are part of the hippie group.  As time goes by, the groups criss-cross one another’s paths constantly via fourth of July parties, weddings, Halloween balls and businesses owned by members of the club and affiliates.  SOL member John Clark’s wife, Edie, owns the small-town cafe where both club members and hippies come to eat; Mike Blackhorse owns an auto repair shop where a member of the SOL works; the club owns a strip club and bar where bikers, Vietnam vets and occasional hippies go for a beer or two.  While there are infrequent clashes between the groups, their shared history and continuous crossing over into one another’s lives keeps the two groups more or less friendly for the rest of their lives (the saga will continue in two upcoming books).

Of course, this is what fiction allows an author to do:  create a world where the unlikely becomes believable (hopefully).

 

Upcoming Book Signing, Reading and Slideshow, Saturday, October 14 at Pipe & Thimble Bookstore, Lomita, CA 11AM-2PM

 

 

Book Signing at Pipe & Thimble Bookstore in Lomita, California

I will be reading from and signing copies of Red, White & Blues:  Book One” as well as playing a slideshow that will showcase events, fashion, culture and music from the years that the novel takes place:  1964-1977.

If you are in the area, please stop by!  I will have copies for sale, but if you have your own, please do not hesitate to bring it!

Thank you for your support of indie authors and bookstores!  Please be sure and review and recommend “Red, White & Blues:  Book One”!

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50 Years On

I must begin this blog by admitting that I was two years old when the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released.  I grew up already knowing the music, well aware of rock ‘n’roll through my parents’ record collections and as I grew up, my own.  Music was an important part of our lives.  The radio was always on in the car when going anywhere.  At the house, the Beatles, Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin blared from the stereo system, located in the living room.  My dad recorded me and my two younger brothers on eight-track tape singing along to “Joy to World” by Three Dog Night.  “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!  Was good friend of mine…”

I had my own stereo system in my room from an early age.  I could listen to my own records in my own room (Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion was a favorite, as was the 1970s classic kid album Free to be You and Me, featuring Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks).  Later, I received rock records for my birthdays and Christmas and my great love of music took off.  Growing up in an upper middle class neighborhood, I had no idea how rare it was to have your own stereo and records until I began going to school.

Although my parents didn’t have the Sgt. Pepper album, I was given the Beatles double anthology album (or blue album) as a present one year.  On it was the song “A Day in the Life”.  I remember being terrified of it (perhaps the crescendo in the middle did it).  I was a rather sensitive child, prone to a vivid imagination and nightmares.

I’ve since lost my fear of most things, including “A Day in the Life”.  With the fiftieth anniversary of the album I decided that I should listen to it from beginning to end through headphones.  Over the years, I have often thought about and marveled at what it must’ve been like to experience that album for the very first time, to experience the birth of psychedelic rock.  Being born into rock ‘n’ roll, it’s impossible to conceive of a time when it was new.  What could that have been like?

I cued up the album and began my morning walk, a four-mile roundtrip through the better part of town, which is across the street from where I live.  I concentrated on the music and the nature around me:  large trees lining the streets, beautiful flowers and interesting plants, squirrels and occasional cats, birds and insects like huge, bumbling scarab beetles and monarch butterflies.

Being so familiar with the album, it was hard to listen to it with the fresh ears that I’d hoped I could.  The diversity of the music on the album is the most evident thing to me.  From the opening track (“Sgt. Pepper’s…”) and subsequent segue way into “With a Little Help From My Friends”, the mood seems playful, cheerful.  Following is “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, which John Lennon has sworn ad nauseam has nothing to with LSD, but listening to it you can’t help but put the two together.  I must confess that as a twenty something-year old Deadhead in the mid-1980s, I took LSD on several occasions, but never experienced anything remotely like what is described in the song.

Onward.  “Getting Better”-another jaunty number, followed by “Fixing a Hole”, a song that always really appealed to me for some reason.  “She’s Leaving Home”, with its timely tale of a young girl running away to find her true life/self being sung so beautifully over that sort of rambling, Victorian-sounding music and then the strange sounds of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and that BOOM-CHA, BOOM-CHA beat behind the swirling carnival music!  That must’ve been a revelation.

It is morning, but not too early, around 8:00 or so.  The sun is out, there’s a nice breeze.  I am looking up through the trees, seeing the streaks of rainbow sunlight pulse through and “Within You Without You” begins.  I am a huge fan of Indian music as well as other Eastern sounds like Moroccan music.  I listened and kept my eyes skyward and finally caught a glimmer of “that feeling”, what it must’ve been like to hear something so new and unimaginable.

“When I’m Sixty-Four”…well, when I hear that song now, I think, “Most of the people that heard that for the first time in 1967 probably ARE sixty-four or older…”  I also think that I myself will be sixty-four in a mere twelve years and how impossible that seemed to me when I was twenty.  “Lovely Rita”, never one of my favorites, but it never fails to make me smile and think of my own dear friend, Rita (who is not a meter maid).

“Good Morning Good Morning”, a brassy, sort of balls-out young man feeling his oats song with all those farm animals blasting off behind him.  This is followed by a second, more rocking version of “Sgt. Pepper’s…” that followed by the dreaded “A Day in the Life”.

Since I have since lost my fear of the song, it’s hard for me to realize what was so terrifying about it, but it’s a snarky song, to be sure.  A statement on the burgeoning state of disengagement from the world and its events, kinda like how things are today with social media.  At least parts of it seem that way to me, a human who has skyrocketed from living in a world where riding your bike unattended all day was the norm and plastics were more than okay to one where kids and adults alike live vicariously through their computers and are deathly afraid of using microwaves.  (I am fully aware that my perceptions about this song are wrong, by the way…)

And how about that last bit of weirdness at the end of the album?  Back in its day, you’d have thought that the record was defective since that bit with the noise and the indecipherable muttering (actually Paul McCartney saying, “Never could see any other way”) stuck in the run-out groove and played over and over until the needle was picked up.  Clever boys, those Beatles.

I guess the only real way for me to fully appreciate the brilliance and absolute revelation of the album is by learning of all that went into its creation.  The Beatles before this time could be easily categorized as a very talented pop/rock group, but once Sgt. Pepper’s came out, the sky cracked open and people’s heads exploded with new ideas about music.  Of course, there is also the time in which the album came out.  Nineteen sixty-seven was the Summer of Love.  Young people all over the world were dismissing old ideas and conservative ways of living, they were dropping acid and believing, really believing that if the entire world were to turn on, tune in and drop out, there would be world peace, communal living, money would no longer be valid, hunger would end and all preconceived notions would be universally and immediately dismissed.  Music was a part of all of this-a big part.  Back then, musicians often set the pace and tone of the times, they were a tangible part of the youth culture.  People listened to them.  (This could also go horribly awry, as when Charles Manson claimed that the Beatles were speaking directly to him through the White Album, also known as simply The Beatles.)

I have many friends who are older than me, who actually did experience the birth of psychedelic rock, who heard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with fresh ears and minds.  I envy them because as hard as I have tried, I cannot imagine the world before it.  Since those breakthrough years of rock ‘n roll, when electric guitars went freeform and wild, drums went tribal and loud and singers lost themselves in soulful self expression, there hasn’t been any movement in music as important or groundbreaking.  And that says an awful lot about a great many things.

Chapter One from the Forthcoming Sequel to “Red, White & Blues”.

Chapter One:  1979

July 4^th.  The last one of the decade.  Edie Clark is busy with food and children.  Her husband, John, is out in the garage with some of his brothers from the motorcycle club, the Souls of Liberty.  Stories and bottles of liquor, spare motorcycle parts, sweat, laughter.

It has been nearly two years since John’s brother, Pete, was murdered while working the late shift at a local gas station.  Two years without convictions or sentences.  Every day John calls the prosecutor.  Every day he is told to be patient; that they will get what they deserve.  It is all John can do not to attempt to take justice into his own hands.

Sandy Porter, the woman Pete Clark left behind to raise their now nearly ten-year old son, is sitting on a swing in her backyard.  She is drunk.  She holds a cigarette, nearly burnt down to the filter and stares off into oblivion.

“Come on, Mom,” Jimmy says, taking the cigarette from her fingers.  “Aren’t we gonna go to Uncle John’s?”

Sandy sighs.  There are so many reasons why she doesn’t want to go there this year.  Two of them are men.  Men that used and then discarded her and they will be there, staring at her, telling stories about her.

For seven months, she had an intense affair with Lucas Blackhorse.  He and Julie Hartford, his girlfriend and Sandy’s best friend, had moved in after Pete’s death initially to help with the mortgage and taking care of Jimmy.  After six months of living under the same roof, Sandy took more than just monetary help from Lucas.  She was so vulnerable and he was perceptive, selfish.  One cold night, an extra glass of wine, a sympathetic touch.

Two months passed before Julie realized what was going on.  Rage fueled by bitterness and betrayal lead to Julie moving back to her old apartment in Pacific Grove and taking her six-year old daughter, Pandora, with her.  She and Sandy’s relationship has never been the same.  In the aftermath, Lucas and Sandy’s relationship began breaking down.  Five months later, Lucas left.

December 1978.  Enter Kevin Miller, the one-eyed biker.  He and Sandy hoped to weather the holidays in a drunken, lustful haze.  For two months, they staved off depression and a real fear of being so lonely over Christmas that they simply wouldn’t make it alone.  They shared some good times, but it was clear early on that Sandy would never be able to fit into the biker lifestyle.  Too headstrong, opinionated, stubborn.  Besides, Kevin’s devotion to his club and motorcycle left her alone much of the time, so the relationship really did nothing to put her fears to rest.

The worst was yet to come for Sandy.  In January, Lucas contacted Julie.  He wanted her back.  She refused and he left the next day for Wisconsin, intending to spend the summer-maybe longer-with his mother and relatives back on the old reservation.  By March, Kevin had gone and Sandy was alone again.  Julie called Lucas; he could return if he married her.  In April, there was an informal ceremony in San Francisco.

This is why Sandy does not want to go to the Clarks’ 4^th of July party.

“Mommy?”

Sandy is shaken from her thoughts.  She follows her son back into the house.  He pulls a tub of store-bought macaroni salad from the fridge, setting it on the kitchen table next to a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes. Sandy packs it all into a paper grocery bag.

“Okay, honey,” she says.  “Go and get a jacket.   It’ll be cold later.”

Mike Blackhorse packs his family into the Jeep that he bought his wife, Sarah.  With the two children growing, he thought it better than the Volkswagen Bug that Sarah had been driving them around in.  Free, now almost nine, and his six-year old sister, Eve, climb in the back.  Eve holds a Tupperware container filled with cut-up vegetables; Free balances a bowl of dip on his lap.  Sarah has a cake up front.  Mike starts the car and they are off.

In February of 1978, Mike purchased the vacant lot next to his auto repair shop and hired two more mechanics, Greg and Paul.  Mike’s old mentor, Ernie Mueller, came down from San Francisco and literally wept at the site of Mike’s shop and his success.  It was one of Mike’s proudest moments. The two men had a picture taken in front of the shop that was now hanging in the office.

At the Clarks’, more club brothers have arrived. The driveway is crowded with choppers; chrome glistens in the sun, burning oil fills the air.  Morgan Stewart is in his sixth year as President; John is still the Sergeant at Arms.  VP Big Al Riley had begun to have heart issues, so Salem Lund was elected Vice President.  His co-ownership of Full Throttle Customs and the Swizzle Stick with Morgan and his general intelligence made him the natural choice. His old position of Road Captain went to Justis Jones. Dewey Leightner is still Treasurer but Melvin Robideaux is now Secretary as Clayton “Spider” Carvell had been imprisoned for possession of an illegal firearm and a small amount of methamphetamine.  In his absence, the club looks after his wife, Sam, and two very young children, two- year old Travis and one- year old Casey.

Alex Lund, Salem’s twin brother, is now an unlikely part of this scene.  Since starting his own legal practice and moving to Carmel, the twins had resumed their close relationship, spending a lot of time together.  Alex has also become the club’s go-to attorney, except for any cases that involve his brother.  Those he gives to his newly acquired partner, Frank Abbott.

Now Salem arrives, Sadie in tow.  She is carrying their eleven- month old daughter, Rowan.  After discovering that she was pregnant, Sadie and Salem had married. To please his parents, there had been a wedding at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, much to the amusement of his club brothers.  Clearly, the ties that he had to his parents were still strong, despite all the grief that he continued to inflict upon them.  A more fitting party was held the following weekend at the Souls’ clubhouse before the newlyweds took off for a honeymoon in Sweden, where Salem’s younger sister had returned after her own marriage.

Sandy and Jimmy come through the back gate.  Edie gently lowers her three and a half- year old daughter, Jessica, down to the grass and goes over to help with Sandy’s bag.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says, embracing Sandy.  “How are you?”

“Great,” Sandy replies, but flashes a look to Edie that means she is anything but.

“Is Pandora gonna be here?” Jimmy asks.

“I think so, but why don’t you go and play with your cousins for now?”  Edie steers the boy in the direction of her two sons, Warren, six, and Shane, five.

Sandy follows Edie over to one of the picnic tables.  “I assume that means Lucas and Julie are coming?”

“They’re invited,” Edie says, uncovering the macaroni salad.

Sandy sighs.  “Well, I guess I can’t avoid them forever.  I’d like to, though!”

Free and Eve Blackhorse come over and set the vegetables and dip down on the table.

“Where’s Jimmy?” Free asks.

Edie points him to the front yard.  He goes off running with Eve trailing behind him.  They nearly trip their parents on their way back out the gate.

“Stay around here!” Mike shouts.

Sarah sets her cake down with the other desserts while Mike goes off to grab a beer from one of the many coolers.

“Happy 4^th!” Sarah says.

Sandy nods.  “Yep!  I’m gonna go put this wine in the fridge.”

“How’s she doin’?” Sarah asks Edie.

“Not great, but she’ll be fine.  She’s got to get back on her feet.  I think it’s a good sign that she came!”

“Yeah, it ain’t gonna be easy seein’ Lucas and Julie,” Sarah admits.  “I could just kill him for doin’ what he did.”

Morgan Stewart spots Mike at the cooler and walks over.  He opens the lid and pulls out an icy bottle.

“How are ya, Blackhorse?”

“Great!  You?”

“Never better!”

Morgan pops the top off his beer with a pocketknife and drinks down half the contents.  “That’s good shit!  Gotta keep Ol’ Smiley grinnin’!”

He turns to watch Kim Daniels walk over to Sarah and Edie.  True to his word, he still hasn’t married her.  His two sons have joined him this 4^th of July.  Lane is now twelve and has grown sullener with each passing year.  Invariably, it is Morgan’s fault that the boy is the way he is.  The four hundred miles between he and Valerie is no barrier for blame.  Being raised in San Francisco by his mother, Victoria, seven-year-old Max seems to be faring better.

“Oh, God!” Edie says as Kevin Miller enters the backyard. “Here comes trouble.”

Sandy is still inside.  Kevin strides over to Morgan and Mike, claps his president on the back and then grabs a beer.  He is unconcerned about seeing Sandy and does not understand the awkwardness it will bring her.  Hell, he was never looking to settle down and if that’s what she thought, it was her fault, not his.  Still, when he sees her come out of the kitchen and stop short, his face flushes.  Gathering herself, she walks past him and back toward Sarah and Edie.

“Hey, girl,” Kevin says and grabs her arm.

Sandy stares him down, her body tense.

“Calm down,” he says, and then loosens his grip.  “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

Sandy laughs.  “Yeah,” she says and walks off.

Morgan shakes his head.  “Let it go, brother.”

“What?  I don’t want any bad feelings and weepy chicks ruining my day, that’s all.”  Kevin downs his beer.  “Besides, it ain’t your business.”

“I know,” Morgan says, and walks off to find another distraction.

Kevin reaches into the cooler for another beer.  “You know that broad pretty well,” he says to Mike.

“Yep.”

“Well, you know what I’m talking about, right?”

“Not sure.”  Mike does not want to get involved in this.  At all.

“Fuck it!” Kevin says, and then he, too, walks off.

It is dusk by the time Lucas and Julie show up and she marches straight over to Sandy.

“Look, we need to talk,” she says.

Sandy finishes off her glass of wine.  “Alright.  Let’s go inside.”  She refills her glass and offers one to Julie. They sit down at the kitchen table.

“It’s been three months since Lucas and I got married,” Julie starts.  “Please, can’t we put the shit behind us?”

Sandy runs her finger around the base of her glass.  “He hurt me, Julie.”

“He hurt me, too!  So did you, but I can’t go on like this.  We’ve been friends for too long to let a man get between us.”

“So you’ve forgiven me?”

“Yes.”

“What about him?  Have you forgiven him?”

“I don’t know.  No, I guess not fully.  Not yet.”  Julie sighs.  “The truth is I guess if it really came down to it, I’d rather have you than him.”

Sandy smiles.  “That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“That’s how I feel, too.  I just don’t know if I’m ready to see him again.”

“You don’t have to.  Besides, I don’t think he wants to see you, either.  He knows he’s an asshole!”

Julie gets up from her chair and goes around to Sandy, hugging her from behind.  “I love you!  I’ve missed having you in my life!”

Sandy can feel hot tears rolling down her cheeks.  “Me too,” she sputters.

Mike has found his way to the garage.  Under a huge Souls of Liberty flag, a game of darts is going on in one corner, a game of pool in another and lots of drinking and laughing in between.

“Hey, Mikey!”  John says.  His eyes are red slits and he sways slightly on his stool.

It always amazes Mike how much alcohol these guys could put away, but then he remembers when he had just returned from Vietnam and how much he was drinking himself.  These guys were doing it in happiness for the most part; he had been doing it in despair.

“Come on in,” Morgan says, raising a beer bottle.  Pretty wasted himself, he throws an arm around Mike’s shoulders.  “How’s your bike runnin’ these days?”

“Pretty good.  I keep it up even though I don’t ride it too much, ya know!”

“Hey!”  Morgan says conspiratorially.  He points his beer bottle in Mike’s face.  “You know what?  We both have a brother who spent time with Sandy…and didn’t survive!  Is she a man eater or what?”

Mike smiles, but is not sure where this is going.  These guys were so unpredictable when they were drunk.

“Yah, I guess we do,” he says.

Morgan nods.  “You know what else?”  He leads Mike down the driveway, his arm still around his shoulders.  “You ever think about joining a club?  Our club?  We could use a guy like you.  You keep your bike running, you’re responsible, you were in Nam.  I bet you can fight.  You get along with all of us…”

Mike is taken aback.  He has thought about it, but only in fantasy terms.  Only when he sees them ride through town in a pack, wishing he were going wherever they were off to.  To be a member of the Souls of Liberty would take so much of his time.  Time that he simply didn’t have.

“Morgan, I appreciate it.  Really!  I’m…honored that you would ask me, but I just don’t think I could find the time.”

Morgan nods.  “Yeah, well, you think about it, okay?“  He lets his arm slip from Mike’s shoulders.  “It’s a good club.  I think you could use us.”

“I know what you mean,” Mike says.  “I do.”

“I know you do.  Think about it, alright?”

Mike remembers the morning when he confessed his absolute worst secrets from Vietnam to Morgan.  Aside from Pete, who took the knowledge to his grave, he was the only other human being in Mike’s world who knew what he had done.  He knows exactly what Morgan means.  And they both know that Mike will decline the offer.

San Clemente is a sleepy, Southern California beach town.  Haven Hartford has made it his home.  He and his girlfriend, Seta Kapoor, had tied the knot after being together for two years and now have a five-month old daughter, Drisana.  After spending the better part of his time working on new paintings, Haven had an extremely successful run of shows at galleries in Laguna Beach where he sold all of his work.  As the money came in, he began to think more and more about opening up his own art store and studio in San Clemente, a town where he had become very comfortable.

In October of 1978, The Art Haven opened downtown and the Hartfords moved to a two-bedroom apartment near the San Clemente Pier.  Haven began offering art classes on Thursday evenings and was so over-booked that he had to place tables out on the sidewalk.  Life has finally fallen into place for him.

When Pandora, his daughter with Julie, comes down for the summers, he takes her surfing with him.  The little girl amazed her father and friends with her innate skill. With determination, fierce brown eyes fixed on the waves, Pandora seemed older than her mere four years.  Haven had no doubts that this girl was something very special.  Despite his excitement and pride, he couldn’t shake another feeling that seemed almost like fear.  Seta, too, saw something unexplainable in the child, a maturity that seemed overbearing in a sense.

In San Francisco, Maura Weston is managing the bookstore, Moonstone Books.  She and her son, Toby, now twelve, live in a small house near Golden Gate Park.  Louise Powell still owns and oversees the operations of the bookstore, but has given up many of the daily duties to Maura, concentrating on her tarot card readings instead.

The apartment above the store has been sitting vacant for some time now, and Maura is on her way to meet a new prospective tenant.  As she walks toward the store, she can just make out a man standing near the stairs that led up to the one-bedroom apartment.

“Hello!” Maura says, extending a hand.  “I’m a little out of breath!”

“Hi,” the man extends his hand.  “I’m Asher Levin.”

Maura takes his hand.  “Maura Weston.  Come on up.”

The man follows her up the stairs and then waits on the landing while she opens the door.

“It may be a bit musty,” Maura says.  “I’m afraid I haven’t been very diligent about opening the windows up here.”

Asher Levin laughs, closes the door behind them.  “It’s a one bedroom?”

“Yes.  It’s great for one person…or a couple.  Would it just be you or…?”

“Yes, just me.  Oh!  And my pet cat, if that’s alright.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”  Maura pulls the curtains back in the kitchen and opens the window.  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Levin, if I may ask?”

“Of course!  I’m a teacher over at City College on Phelan, but I’m also studying to get my PhD in Psychology. I’d like to teach at one of the universities.”

“Well!  Impressive!  That’s wonderful!  What do you currently teach?”

“General Psychology.  It’s interesting, but not really enough for me.”

Asher peeks into the bedroom.  “May I?” he asks, and then proceeds into the small room.

“Of course!”  Maura says.  “There’s an attached bathroom back there as well!”

“I like it,” he says, returning.  “What do we do about that?”

“Great!  I just have some paperwork here…”

Maura watches as he fills out the application.  His writing is neat, small.  His hair is black and curly; he has a well-kempt beard and moustache.  He wears round glasses.  He somewhat reminds her of Cat Stevens.

As they head out of the apartment, Maura explains the hours and operations of the bookstore below.  Asher listens politely before heading back to his car, a well-worn red Karman Ghia.

“See you next week, then!”  Maura calls.  “Oh!  What’s your cat’s name?”

“Freud!  What else?”

Louise Powell has been engaged to photographer Avery Booth for one month now.  Micheaux, Louise’s nine-year old son, has taken a deep liking to Avery, which has made things easier on everyone, especially Louise.  Knowing how much the boy had loved his father, Cain, she feared that he would never allow another man to be as a father to him.  However, Mikey was only five when Cain was shot and killed on duty while working for the Oakland Police Department, and although he remembers his father well enough, he had still been young enough to be able to accept someone else.

Louise is relieved when she hears that the apartment has been rented.  She hopes that he will stay for some time as the added income really helps.  Avery’s photography business did very well (as did the bookstore), but extra money always came in handy, especially with a growing boy in the house.

Louise had hoped to move to Monterey, especially after Pete Clark’s murder, but the bookstore and Avery’s photography didn’t make it plausible.  Instead, they rented a large, four-bedroom apartment on Fulton St. that was within walking distance of Moonstone.  There was plenty of time to plan for their future.

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Why Now is the Perfect Time for “Red, White & Blues” to be Made Into a T.V. Series

“What did I just read?”  You may well be asking this question, but by the time you finish reading this blog, you will (hopefully) be agreeing with the headline instead.

With the sequel to my novel, “Red, White & Blues” getting closer to completion (yes, I’m STILL editing the final draft), I have been thinking about just how much material I have between the two tomes for a great fucking television series.  With the first book at 760 pages and the second threatening to be close to that, there’s many seasons worth of material with lots of great stories, characters, locations, etc.

When “Sons of Anarchy” first aired, I thought, “A show about a motorcycle club!  Why hasn’t this been done before?  Will this even be any good?”  I wanted it to be.  After all, my own novel involves a fictitious motorcycle club (Souls of Liberty) and it would sort be like fantasizing about my own story being played out before my own eyes.

It was good.  It was engrossing, the characters engaging , likeable and sympathetic-even the ones that did bad things.  Just like my own characters whom have garnered sympathy and likability from those that had read and reviewed the book.  While the show had some contrived, cliched and over-the-top moments, it was far and away one of the best television shows I had seen (along with “Hannibal”, “Mad Men” and HBO’s “Deadwood”).  And those moments didn’t bother me much because I am a firm believer in the need for cliches and the like when trying to reach a broad and varied audience.  Sometimes it’s the only way to reel everyone in.

Now that “Sons of Anarchy” has ended and Kurt Sutter has moved on to other projects (which I applaud him for as well as ending the show), there’s a gap that needs to be filled.  A new show about a motorcycle club needs to be placed in front of the now starved and longing public, who  have developed a special place for those guys that some of them probably never even knew they could have.  But it also needs to be more.

A new show has also caught my eye that could be seen as bridging the gap between something like “Sons of Anarchy” and the brilliant modern period piece “Mad Men”, also now gone.  “Aquarius” has popped up on CBS and although it isn’t the greatest show out there, it is tapping into a niche that someone feels needs to be filled (myself included).  The Baby Boomers are feeling nostalgic and hungry for shows that cater to them.  Where are all the hippies, hipsters, bikers, stoners, musicians, freeloaders and just plain Sixties and Seventies folk?

Here!  Over here!  “Red, White & Blues” follows a group of diverse (ethnically as well as personally) friends through the seminal years of 1964-1977.  We’ve got hippies, artists and bikers.  We’ve got the Vietnam War and those left behind.  We’ve got men returning to find a changed country and little sympathy or understanding.  We’ve got sex, drugs, rock n roll, babies, children, marriages, divorces and deaths.  We’ve got changing ideals and lifestyles alongside those who stay true and steady to what they believe.  There’s whites, blacks and Native Americans.  There’s San Francisco, Vietnam, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Monterey.  In short, we’ve really got it all!

With the sequel picking up just two years later and covering the years 1979-1990, the show can go on!  The children are becoming teenagers now, growing up in an era of new technology and a changing music scene.  And there’s a new group of people introduced:  the gay community in San Francisco during the early days of the AIDS struggle.  Now we have familiar but also new situations to deal with:  puberty, teen sex, personal goals and successes and failures, intertwined lifestyles, AIDS and cancer, deaths and births.

So all you screenwriters out there or scouts looking for that next big television show that will fill a growing gap, I suggest you look at the Baby Boomer Generation, of which I am a proud member (albeit on the tail end).  Here is where your audience is, your material, your stories.  It’s time to retell our stories, let us revel in our nostalgia and show the younger generation (who are for the most part quite curious about the Sixties,Seventies and even Eighties) what we lived through and why were are who we are.  For better AND for worse.  “Red, White & Blues” and the upcoming sequel is your answer.

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