Whatever happened to Baby Jane? Or Bill Faust, the Subterranean Circus’ cogitating counterman of the early seventies, who never used a two syllable word when a six-syllable substitute would do? Whatever happened to Patty Wheeler, with her large Cleopatra eyes, who fell in love with insanity at an early age and never abandoned it? Once, on a trip to Taco Bell, Patty fell to her knees and grabbed her throat, rasping out some dying words just for the hell of it. When people came running over from all directions, she suddenly rose up, cleared her throat and simply said, “Oh, I feel MUCH better now.”
Whatever happened to doper Jennie Kinsey, who stole clothes from Silver City and later had a South Florida Sears store call Bill for a reference? What’s happened to our once best pal Rick Nihlen, who moved in next door, took up with loose women and introduced pediculosis pubis to the neighborhood? Wherever is his pert ex-wife Lynn Levy, who tipped a New York cabbie a block of hashish to drive us through kaleidoscopic Times Square while we were pie-eyed on acid? And mainly, whatever happened to Patti Walker, who flaunted authority by briskly driving through Gainesville naked?
When you write nostalgic columns you wonder about these people and many others, the colorful array of friends and neighbors which made Our Town the asylum it was in the 1960s and ‘70s. Have they changed their names and gone on to Great Things? Are they haunting the soup kitchens in L.A.? Is anybody in the government’s Witness Protection Program? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks to Facebook and Good Fortune, we’ve run across a few of them who’ve fought off the slings and arrows of Father Time, locked the Grim Reaper in the basement and found a magic potion somewhere that lets them keep on breathing. We thought you’d want to know.
 |
| Irana yuks it up with Stuart (Always Leave them Laughing) Bentler. |
Irana Maiolo Yass Zisser
If the name sounds like the first line of a limerick, be our guest. After all, yesterday was National Limerick Day. So:
Wouldn’t let anyone kiss ‘er
Unless they arrived
With a basket of chives
And promised they’d never dismiss ‘er.
There are, of course, others in much saltier language but this isn’t that kind of program. Irana, like everyone else, once worked at the Subterranean Circus, she in the early years when pot was $15 a lid and LSD was the weekend resort. She often wore a tight brown jumpsuit and rode a brilliant yellow Yahama, which she occasionally crashed into trees just for sport. The woman didn’t sleep at night so if you were a friend you’d often get a late visit, like at 3 a.m. “Hi, this is Irana. I’m comin’ over.” Don’t worry, though, she had to be gone by five to pick up the fresh hot donuts at the Krispy Kreme down the street. The pastries always had to get to Irana’s house in time to cater to the early morning guest rush.
Irana was our very first delegate to the National Boutique Show. She called one morning to tell us she’d found some marijuana pipes worthy of being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our customers didn’t think so. It took over five years to sell them all, a Guinness Book of Records best.
Irana lived next door to the indescribable Patty Wheeler, who was even crazier than she was. When they paired up to go outside into the world, it was a tag-team which should have been against the law, and sometimes their antics were. Irana doesn’t like me to write about the time her residence was raided by the Drug Patrol and she had to call me for a ride out of town, so I won’t bring it up.
Good news, though. Despite all predictions she’d be dead by 40, Irana M.Y. Zisser continues on, roaming the posh swamps of Boca and going to the doctor a lot. So far, she has had every body part replaced except her pancreas, some of them twice. “I was poor, then I was rich, now I’m poor again,” she philosophizes. “Please tell all my friends to write me and tell me where they are. I might be looking for a place to crash pretty soon.”
 |
| A boy and his dog. |
Bad Santa
As a youth, Chuck LeMasters played the temperamental artist role to the hilt. He was moody, taciturn, a grouch on occasion. Nobody asked him to play Santa at the lodge Christmas party. We hired him anyway because Bill thought he had an interesting sense of humor hidden away in his closet, buried beneath the stash of marijuana-growing literature.
Chuck was a good-looking fellow in a Jesus sort of way. The bad Jesus, the one they don’t talk about in your catechism. The girlies liked him but he was rough on females. “I can always find somebody to sleep with,” he told us, “but nobody wants to live with me.” Nobody wants to live with a grizzly bear either, Chuck.
LeMasters was a decent employee and a loyal friend who could be counted on in a crisis. One night, after a worker/friend at nearby Dan’s Beverages had been assaulted by a roving gang of homeless thugs, Circus buddy Larry Johns and I decided to go after them. Chuck was a little reluctant but he grabbed a long metal pipe (not the smoking kind) and followed us into battle. We caught the miscreants in the Holiday Inn parking lot at University & 13th and tore into them, doing some damage and routing the lot. Naturally, someone called the cops. It was our word against theirs, of course, but it was difficult to claim innocence for Chuck, who was hiding the pipe behind his back. That might have been a successful tactic if it wasn’t sticking up two feet over his head. Fortunately for us, the arriving officers had just come from the hospital where the Dan’s employee had described the events of the day. “Personally, I think you guys deserve a medal,” one of the cops muttered lowly. Chuck never realized his pipe was exposed.
LeMasters has slowed down and mellowed a bit since those thrilling days of yesteryear. He lives in a modest home near Jonesville now with his tiny dog, Timmy, and daily entertains legions of fans on Facebook. Chuck is slightly better at keeping his temper under wraps these days and has been seen laughing out loud occasionally. The best is yet to come, however. Just the other day, the Newberry Daughters of the Suwanee asked him to play Santa Claus at their Christmas Fair. If everything works out, one of them promised she’d live with him for a week.
 |
| Will (Snakes On A Plane) Thacker. |
Thackermania
Will Thacker, who used to be Bill, also used to be Montana, a Gainesville radio station deejay big shot in Circus times. The store advertised on his station frequently and Will/Bill often broadcast the ads. One day, the persnickety Bill Killeen called him and told him that jewelry was not pronounced “joo-la-ree” and he should use that word only on his own time. Thacker repented but has never gotten over the upbraiding in fifty long years. “You called me while I was on the AIR!” he remembers, still amazed. Killeen says he’s just glad the Circus didn’t sell any “nook-u-lar” stuff.
Not satisfied with mere DJ hijinks, Thacker eventually opened a store called the Underground Zoo, which sold…well…everything animal, but specialized in snakes. Ask Will to tell you a few stories about interesting things that happen in the snake business. Bring your lunch. He also travelled the world on animal business, even trudging through the jungles of the Amazon, often with the Grim Reaper right on his heels. Thacker has begun writing a blog of his own recalling the life and times of he and his merry men as they roamed the Earth in search of fun and profit. It comes out every Friday on his Facebook page if he remembers. He also regales his FB audience with a plethora of insufferable puns, relentless tomfoolery and gripping stories about his Clermont home. If you don’t like his current posting, wait a second, there’ll be ten more. Ubiquitous is the adjective for Will/Bill, a guy so expansive they had to name him twice.
Will was supposed to visit Pieland a few weeks ago in the company of Gunny Carnes, fresh off the reservation. Gunny was one of the early Circus workers and the main culprit responsible for letting a teenage Marty Jourard hang around. Gunny would sell his soul for a box of Marty’s doughnuts. The daring duo never made it to our place, though, due to some wacky emergency better left unspoken. Will promised he’d return some day soon unimpeded by Indians, but we’re not holding our breath. If he ever does make it, we’re hoping he leaves the snakes in the car.
 |
| Bron Beynon in training at Witch Hazel's Aviation Academy. |
Searching The Wanted Posters
And while we’re at it, where is Bron Beynon, a responsible woman who once managed the Circus and kept the books? Cooly professional in her business responsibilities, Bron was mildly addled in her personal life. First, she cozied to men, then ran off with a woman, pinballed back to a boyfriend and dumped him for a gal before she joined the Wiccan nation and said the hell with it all. BB’s house gives a new meaning to the term “broom closet” (she has seven) and she gets giddy every Halloween when the new models come out.
Where is Brenda “Moon” McClenathan and hippie sweetheart Patti Colvin? What happened to Enrique, the Mexican mini who abandoned ship when we wouldn’t double his pay? Is Supergirl Debbie Brandt still in Atlanta with her rock ‘n’ roll husband? Is Rose Coward still lurking in the shadows of GHS with her butterfly net? The mind reels with lurid curiosity.
We do know a few things. Commodore Chris Thibaut is still holding on down on the Treasure coast. Jagger Hatcherson and Johnny “Acid Love” Bolton are living the life in delicious Sun Valley, Idaho. Debbie Adelman Wynn is reaping souls for Jesus north of Orlando, hoping to redeem herself with the Big Guy for the many sins of her youth. Steve Ringer, in an upset special, has transmogrified into a dependable family man and is spoiling his glamor-girl daughters somewhere in the wilds of Virginia. Linda Hughes Bridges has finally arrived at her calling and is milking cows on a Republican farm in North Carolina. Danny Whiddon is driving an ice-cream truck through the busy neighborhoods of Oviedo. Ex-rock idol Marty Jourard is a piano-tuner in Kirkland, Washington.
But where-oh-where is Jim “Waterbedman” Hines, you ask? Selling pencils on some dusty street in Georgia at last reckoning. Leslie (Bentler) Logan, of course, is still running naked through the woods, these days in Highlands, North Carolina, not far from Lynn Maxwell’s nudist colony. Sherry Bianchi Snyder, always a showoff, operates a spectacular pizza house/dance hall in Siena, Italy, where it’s hard to get good drugs. Newt Simmons’ wife, Anne White, is a long-distance trucker for Deco ‘R’ Us, driving the redneck route between Natchez, Mississippi and Gulfport, Florida. Nancy Kay, as everyone knows, is a beach bunny somewhere near St. Augustine. Michael Davis is at a party. He’ll be at another one tomorrow.
If anyone knows, please write and advise us as to the current status of ex-G’ville haberdasher Ira Vernon. Last time we saw him was at Gulfstream Park where his gambling addiction had whittled his bankroll to nothing and he was scouring the floor for prematurely tossed winning tickets. Ira—they’re always looking for another hotwalker at Eddie Plesa’s barn. Leave your yarmulke at home when you go to apply.
 |
| On the loose in Idaho: Johnny Bolton, Bill and Jagger Hatcherson. |
That’s all, folks….
