Beat Artist
9/23/00
Mike -- I've
got a kind of busy day ahead, but I should have some time this evening
to sort through my pix and see if I still have the pic of your dad. It's
an excellent 8x10 b&w portrait. If I find it, I will e-mail you
a copy. Say hello to Jerry K. for me if you see him. I knew
him a lot better than I knew Mike Bowen. Jerry and Leslie (whom he
later married) shared the loft at Pacific and Davis for awhile with me
and Sammy.
9/23/00
I found the
picture of your dad! I was planning to e-mail you a copy and
keep the original because I like it a lot. But I don't have a scanner
and my wife said, "Why don't you send him the original -- it will mean
way more to him than it does to you."
She is right. If the snapshot you posted to me is the only other pic that you have of your father, you will be very pleased to have this one. So send me a postal address and I'll send it along to you.
I think when you see the picture, you will want to include it in your story on-line. If so, please mention my name and e-mail address in case an old friend or two should happen to see it.
Also I read the pages you have posted on-line. I see that you have already located Jerry Kamstra and Mike Bowen. I had forgotten about Arthur. I vaguely remember Arthur, I think. Was he a black artist? If so, I think he's still in San Francisco or nearby.
9/24/00
I'm glad
to hear that Tokay Bill has survived. He and I and your Dad
and others used to buy Tokay by the quart in a store on Broadway very close
to Mike's Place, and consume it fairly quickly in the alley between Vesuvio's
and City Lights Bookstore. Some of us would then return to our seats
in Vesuvios and nurse a single beer for
hours.
We got our conversation at Vesuvio's but we got our buzzes in the alley.
The alley has since been named for Jack Kerouac who, I guess, did likewise.
I will send the picture to you tomorrow. You will like the picture. It is a very good portrait of your dad, looking pensive, handsome and a bit sad. It was taken in the loft he shared with Michael and Arthur, I think. It shows WAY more of who he was than the picture you already have.
Thanks to you, I also heard from Mike Bowen, who would like a copy of the picture. Alas it is the only copy I have. I don't know what I did with the negative. You might want to have a copy made and give one to Michael. I would like a copy also.
I would love to have Jerry's phone number and address. Strangely, I never have read the Frisco Kid, although I knew about it, and I have read his book about pot smuggling. I keep meaning to pick up a copy of The Frisco Kid from one of the many on-line used book sellers.
I lost track of Jerry when he stopped taking care of a Henry Miller library or museum at Big Sur, and that was a few years ago. I was out there briefly during the 1990s and drove down to Sur, but Jerry wasn't there. And Limekiln Creek, where all of us used to camp and pick mistletoe to sell during the Christmas Season, had been turned into a pricy private campground. Jerry and Leslie and Sammy and I would drive down in Jerry's classic old 1920's vintage roadster (Pontiac?) with a rumble seat.
I was a kid in my mid-20s, doing dope, picking banjo, writing poems, taking pictures and grooving on flowers, sunsets and life. I didn't spend any time hanging out with the people who had figured out how to make money.
The one exception
was Jay Hoppe who ran the Co-Existence Bagel Shop, opposite the Coffee
Gallery on Grant. Jay was a friendly guy who eventually left North
Beach and opened a bar called Googie's in Greenwich Village in NY. A lot
of San Francisco people hung out at Googies when they were in NY. Jay was
older than me and I'm 66. If Jay is still alive, he might remember
your dad. I believe that Jay later opened a kind of classy place
in an old speakeasy left over from Prohibition years in the West Village.
LInk from Photo for more
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