The Kenya Coffee Bar on Kings Road in 1961 was tight and right, filled with the finest tailored faces ever assembled in a public cafe on a daily basis. It was even slicker than Rome's "Via Venito".

I had recently arrived in London with a hundred thousand cash gained the hard way . Michael Beebe called me a lucky Beatnik and he was right. But what kind of luck is it that gets your best friend killed and cripples you up so you cant dance around on the Hollywood Stage like you were becoming  accustomed  to.

Sure, I thought I had a bit of luck and was holding a winning hand, full of Aces. I had a wallet full of money and was newly married to Penny Jackson a young Palo Alto heiress.  The money came from damages received after a wreck on the highway that killed my best friend Don Morgen and crippled me.

Yet I had been warned. Giles Healey,Big Sur's  genius about everything did my astrological chart and said it was poorly aspected. What did that mean? Author Henry Miller said "don't worry about it", so I didn't.  I hobbled about Big Sur on crutches during the summer of 1959 and met and became friends with Beatnik, British poet Michael Beebe. We drove around in my big Buick smoking pot, gossiping and boasting mostly about woman and the fine art of snagging an heiress.
We spent a lot of time drinking in San Francisco's North Beach at a Jazz Club called Mr Otis's. Then when I told Beebe how the wreck had aborted my Hollywood career, he challenged me to take him down and introduce him to agent Henry Wilson and Rock Hudson. We drove to L.A. and Henry received us at his Bell Air home where he lived with Rock Hudson. Beebe was satisfied and soon  had himself repatriated back to England while I returned to Big Sur.

Two years later I received a judgment from the court and with   Penny flew to London to pick up a new Jaguar and tour Europe.

Penny and I were an  ill matched couple united only in a plan to escape. Escape what? Middle class boredom. She was a sensitive poetess and I was a frustrated artist. Sex was our escape until she became pregnant. Then we quickly went to Reno and married. But a short time later she started having pain in her abdomen and we discovered she had what was called a tubular pregnancy, quickly ended by a trip to Stanford Hospital.

Now I was married and I didn't want to be. I knew I wasn't in love with Penny but she had become my best friend. Divorce was out of the question for me because I was half Catholic (mothers side). Also divorce was not yet fashionable except among movie stars.

We arrived in London and I tracked Beebe from Soho to Chelsea where I found him on Tight Street at the Phoenix Pub.

With me at the wheel of our smart white 3.8 Jaguar sedan Beebe guided us all over London.Then Penny's parents arrived with her sisters to take her with them on a month tour of Scotland. That left Beeby and Myself free to go to Paris and Saint Tropaz.
When we got back to London and "The Kenya Coffee Bar" we were proudly wearing our Mediterranean tans. We found out about a movie Beebe's friend Mim Scala was working on in Spain and determined to return to Saint Tropez with Penny and another friend of Michael's called Tom Cholmondly.When Penny rejoined us Penny agreed that we should take  with us because she learned he had never been out of London.

The second trip to Saint Tropez was no fun for anybody except perhaps Cholmondly.We started going on a bummer during a trip from Saint Tropez to Cannes when we discovered we had left our pot in the Hotel and were afraid the maid would discover it and turn us in to the French police. When we got back the pot was still there but we decided not to stay but get on to Spain.

It was just before dawn, Beebe was driving, I was in the front seat beside him and Penny and Cholmondly were asleep in the rear seat.

Wham! I woke up with a start to see our car sliding sideways down the tree lined road until we came to a stop. I jumped out and looked behind us Where a Mercedes sedan was still spinning and sliding. Beeby was saying "The Axle Broke". As it turned out
Beeby had fallen asleep at the wheel and we had drifted in front of the Mercedes. Our front left wheel had been torn away and the door on the drivers side of the Mercedes was gone.But nobody was screeched.

The next big problem was we were now in Spain and I did not have the special insurance needed to drive in Spain. So before the Spanish Police arrived I paid a thousand American dollars to the old couple driving the Mercedes and they split in their doorless car. We meanwhile had to be towed into Barcelona and made the best of it by attending bull fights. Beeby wanted to go back to England so we got him a plane ticket, but as soon as he was gone we discovered he had our pot. Bumper, hash was not hard to get but pot was unavailable.We could only get it from Jamaicans in London. So Penny, Cholmondly and myself were Potless and carless in Barcelona. It didn't diminish Cholmondly Joy because he wasn't a Pot Head but Penny and I were slightly gloomy, perhaps me more so.

What to do? Rent a Taxi to take us to southern Spain. No problem. Pay the Taxi driver a bundle and endure a long uncomfortable ride
to Denia south of Valencia. it took 2 months for the car in Barcelona to be repaired. Meanwhile on the squeaky bed of a Spanish Hotel we made another baby.

It was worth the trip because we met Mim and Donna Brownjohn.

Link To Mim and Fred

Link to Renaissance Chess
 
 

Horrible Cafe
SUMMER OF LOVE 1967-1997
COSMIC RAY
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