“New friends may be poems but old friends are alphabets. Don’t forget the alphabets because you will need them to read the poems.”---William Shakespeare
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”---Ralph Waldo Emerson
My old pal Danny Levine, ex-roommate, Subterranean Circus supersalesman and internationally renowned Kawasaki racer will be coming to town for a visit April 15-16. Danny has been away for awhile. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since the late 1990s and that was just for a day. Danny’s been out seeing the world and teaching unworthy churls about Art History in lovely Savannah, Georgia. One day, somebody told him about Facebook and he went nuts, rediscovering his legion of old friends in the Florida fens. “I’m surprised so many of them are still alive,” said Mr. Levine. We’re pretty surprised about it ourselves, Danny.
After suffering the daily whines of a homesick roommate as a college freshman, I swore I would never share another living space with a male. I have been true to that oath except on two occasions, the first of which was a year spent living at Summit House Apartments in Gainesville with Danny. All in all, he was a pretty good roommate, except for a nasty habit of leaving wine bottles in the sink. He knew enough to take a night off and find temporary lodging elsewhere when the occasion demanded and he didn’t turn a hair when I cranked the music up to deafening levels. We might be roommates at Summit House today if the management hadn’t terminated our lease due to complaints from neighbors. Seems Danny was visited early many mornings by his high-school inamorata Charlotte Yarbrough, who, after appropriate pre-school trysting, he would taxi to school on the back of his noisy motorcycle. There’s nothing like the sound of a Kawasaki revving up at seven in the morning to rouse hung-over college kids from the bliss of Dreamland.
Among his numerous talents, Danny was an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, which means he sent his cereal boxtop and 75 cents in to some vague charlatan and got his official license. This meant he was able to actually marry couples who weren’t too fussy about their rabbi, and his list of weddings included that of Bill Killeen and Harolyn Locklair, a lovely maid from the south who was able to last 10 rounds in the ring with her less than perfect husband. I told him I didn’t hold it against him but I think he’s irked that I smudged his list of successes.
Danny Levine was one of those rare guys like Norm on Cheers, who brightened the room. Everybody perked up when they saw him coming, a smile on his face, a witticism at the ready, compassion for all. Nobody really thought of it that way, but his job was obviously to heighten the mood everywhere he went, a weighty task. Once, during a broken romance, Levine fell off the merriment wagon and nobody liked it. One fellow had the effrontery to say, “Gee, Danny, we count on you to pick things up around here. What are we supposed to do when you’re down in the dumps?”
Danny frowned and slowly walked away, frustrated with the onus visited upon him, sadly in need of his own mood booster. And so the question: when the difficult times arrive, who will play jester to the clown? So far, nobody on Family Feud has the answer to that one.
Where have you been, Dan Levine-io , the swampland turns its lonely eyes to you?
 |
| Famed Art Historian Daniel Levine dispenses wisdom to unworthy acolyte. |
Michael O’Hara Garcia, who owed his unique moniker to a maternal line from the Old Sod, was a bit of a whirlwind. He came in the door like Cosmo Kramer, presented his business and left in a flurry, as if he had promises to keep and miles to go before he’d sleep. I met him when he was writing an occasional column for the Florida Alligator and I was still publishing the Charlatan. You know the old advertising line, “often imitated, never duplicated?” Not only was Garcia never duplicated, nobody even attempted to imitate him. He was (and probably still is) one of a kind, an outlier, a perpetual-motion machine going in several directions at the same time. Hard to take your eyes off, like a tornado or a tall truck headed for a low bridge.
Garcia started out a fairly straightlaced fellow, the son of a lawyer man, a hot Law School prospect who took an errant turn and suddenly found himself in the dubious company of journalists. He was fascinated by the foofaraw surrounding the Charlatan during the Pamme Brewer shenanigans and when I told him we were planning to use the profits to open a store, he was all ears. “I’m going to New York with you,” he told me, and he did.
The summer of 1967 was a revelation, the hippie explosion turning Greenwich Village into Command Central for psychedelia. Colorful little shops were popping up everywhere, filled with posters, color wheels, incense, obscene buttons, Lennon glasses, Nehru shirts and piles of India print bedspreads. Leading the parade was The Infinite Poster on Bleecker Street, which was also a major wholesaler. Michael O’Hara Garcia was flabbergasted at the action in the streets, the ka-ching of the cash registers, the newness of it all. Still, he watched me quickly spend over a thousand of my 1200 dollars and kept asking, “Are you sure you want to do this? You’re spending all your money!”
Michael bought a house two doors down from the Circus building on SW 7th Street and watched the store progress. After a hitch with the Army in Vietnam, he came back and opened his own place in a Georgetown, D.C. basement. He called it Elysian Fields, after the mythological Greek paradise to which war heroes were sent by the gods after their duties had been fulfilled. We hauled a starter crop of inventory from the Circus up to Washington and the locals responded. The underground shop soon outgrew its quarters and moved to a plum spot near the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. One of the straightest kids in high school was now the owner of one of the more prominent head shops in the nation’s capital. Is this a great country or what?
Mike Garcia, however, was not fated to remain in any one place for too long. A boyhood friend named Steven Stills, now doing passably well in the music world, hired the Irish Cuban to aid him in his musical endeavors, a job which lasted for several years. Until, one day, Michael put a crimp in the money pipe from the bank to Stills’ grasping relatives and found out to his surprise that blood was still thicker than friendship. Time for a new calling, which was never a problem for Garcia.
 |
| Michael Garcia, foreground, receives golden guitar from old pal Stephen Stills, behind. |
Riding The MOG Train
On one trip to NYC, Garcia made the dreadful mistake of many and parked his car directly under a NO PARKING! sign for a quick visit to a newspaper shop. Anyone who was not in The City in those days cannot imagine how quickly the tow trucks descended on scofflaws and hauled away their vehicles. It’s no exaggeration to state that making a minimal stop to take a 20-second piss would often leave you walking. Michael, who saw himself as a man of some prominence, was outraged. “We’re going to City Hall to see Mayor Lindsey!” he bellowed. I knew better but decided to go along for the ride.
Now, this was in the days when New York’s city hall had graduated from an easy-access building to a small fort with several lines of defense, the mayor being regularly threatened by one kind of crank or another. For the most part, John Lindsey was not taking visitors, especially people whose cars had been towed. But Garcia carried with him a letter from the distinguished Florida senator George Smathers, for whom he had worked many a day. The letter announced Michael as a man of some consequence, a fellow not to be taken lightly, indeed, a personal friend of the senator. Even Mayor Lindsey’s staff was reluctant to dispatch such a man with celerity. We passed through several layers of defense before I was funneled to a stop and Michael was allowed in to see the Deputy Mayor. He emerged with a smile on his face.
“Did they cancel your fine?” I asked him in disbelief. “Well, they would have,” he said, “but the Deputy Mayor told me it would take a couple of days and I don’t want to sit around and wait. Nice guy, though.” We spent almost an entire day on this Quixotic quest and got nothing more than a lube job from city hall, but Mike was satisfied. He had penetrated the Maginot Line, his status was recognized and the oppressors had accepted his demands. “Here, Michael---on your way out take this rose and a Baby Ruth. And remember us to the senator!” Politicians---they give you nothing, pat you on the head and you’re thrilled for the experience. Ya gotta love the grift.
The Man From Pickens
Gerald Jones, a kind and gentle man, came to Gainesville from Pickens, South Carolina, where his family owned what might be the world’s smallest railroad. The Pickens Railway operated in two separate divisions, the first from Pickens to Easley, a 9.9 mile jaunt and the second a 28.5 mile marathon from Anderson through Belton to Honea Path.
Gerry did not foresee a big career as a railroad magnate so he headed to the University of Florida to take up photography. In the process, he fell in with varlets from the Charlatan magazine where he wound up selling advertising and taking pictures, including those famous ones of Pamme Brewer, which set little Pickens back on its ear. “Is that OUR Gerald? We certainly hope not!”
I shared a funky gingerbread house with Gerald Jones just north of the area which once housed the original Gainesville Mall. He was a reliable roommate who did his share, remained in relatively good spirits and slept a lot. Gerry had a darkroom in the bowels of the building and spent an inordinate amount of time there, equally divided between developing photos and sleeping. Of all the friends and associates I have amassed in this lifetime, I can clearly testify that Gerald Jones is the champion sleeper of the bunch and the competition is not close.
Jones’ predilection towards sleeping only mattered, however, at Charlatan deadline time when I had to have everything ready to take to the printer. On more than one occasion, despite threats of dire consequences to his wellbeing, Gerry promised but failed to deliver. I would tromp down to the darkroom at midday and he’d be out like a light. I couldn’t believe anyone would be so irresponsible and found myself writing paeans to his undependability. Then one day he came home from the sleep doctor with an announcement. “I have narcolepsy,” he sulked. “I can fall asleep at a moment’s notice. I’m not supposed to drive.” Good idea, right? I had never heard of narcolepsy but promptly read all about it.
“There’s no simple cure,” Gerry advised. The cause is unknown. A victim is just walking along, passes out and is carried off by the street sweeper. “No dear, I do not find you exceedingly boring, it’s just a condition I have.” Imagine yourself sitting in the rest room, next thing you know you’re locked in for the night. “Don’t invite Gerald Jones to the party, he always face-plants into the cake.”
Despite his odd malady, Gerald had no trouble finding girlfriends. One of them, June Howard, liked him so much she slept on his porch whenever he had a date over which wasn’t her. Another young lass named Donna Gillespie regarded him as a cult leader in search of a cult. In time, his affliction lessened, then seemed to fade way. So did Gerry, who eventually moved on to Atlanta in search of fame and fortune and a more sophisticated dating pool.
The sad thing about young friends is that they inevitably have a tendency to disappear, vanish into the mountain fog never to be seen again. I took Gerald Jones to dinner for the requisite last rites the night before he left. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced. Finally, we shook hands, embraced and I told him I was sad to see him go. “It’s okay, Bill” Gerry almost whispered, blinking away a tear. “We’ll always have Pamme Brewer.”
 |
| The notorious Yarbrough sisters, wanted in 40 states. Sonia (top), Glenda next, Charlotte, front. Photo by Claudine Laabs, bless her soul. |
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
