This is the 700th edition of The Flying Pie, a column begun in June of 2010 with the intention of keeping in better touch with friends and family, perhaps adding a touch of amusement, reflection and nostalgia to the lives of readers. The friends and family have grown in numbers since the onset of the column despite the inevitable return to the earth of valued old pals felled by Fate, folly or the despicable subdural hematoma. The Pie’s biggest booster, Stuart Bentler left early when amyloidosis came a-calling. Harry Edwards’ lovely Diane was carried off in the night by gypsies. Claudine Laabs sped off into eternity without even leaving a note. Chris Thibaut ran out of air. My first wife, Marilyn Todd, gave the world all she had to give and gracefully ascended the Silver Staircase to rejoin her high-school classmate Pat Brown, who always insisted that Bill write something, anything. Newt Simmons, a card-carrying resident of the Charlatan House on Sixth Street is off somewhere in the firmament doing card tricks and amusing passersby. They are still around, though, in the annals of this column, easy to find, prancing about as if nothing untoward had ever happened. The Magic Door top left of the logo allows entrance and welcomes visitors to come in and take a look. Just around the first corner, Stuart Bentler is waiting with a smile, some jokes and his electric yoyo. If you see him, tell him Groucho sent you.
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| Summer of 1962; Gilbert Shelton, Bill Killeen, Jimmy Olsen |
The Early Days
At the start, The Flying Pie mostly consisted of The Adventures of Bill, tales of childhood and growing up in a gritty Massachusetts mill town. The phrase, “When we were kids….” was used often to bring back memories long left to the fogbanks of Time, tales of neighborhood derring-do, backyard railroad trains with steam engines, reluctant adherence to Catholic tyranny and the unending wonders of baseball. At age 17, Bill the Curious took a train to Oklahoma to see how the other half lived. Penniless at 21, he migrated to Austin in 1962 at the end of the Beatnik Era to join a subculture of brilliant, talented, creative lunatics just beginning to test the waters of marijuana and psychedelic drugs. Some of his Austin compadres became famous, several became dead in the pursuit of life, liberty and wretched excess. The blogger discussed all of it in the reflective pages of The Flying Pie.
Bill met few women he didn’t like and that was a problem for a couple of them he married. The Hippie Era was a time of wild abandon, casual sex and altered states and Killeen’s Subterranean Circus was at the heart of the vortex. What’s a poor boy to do? If you haul someone’s waterbed home, take an hour assembling it and they want to give you a nice tip, isn’t it rude not to accept? What does one do in the throes of Glinda the Crotch-Grabber whose t-shirt read “Time’s a-wastin’?” Or the compromised woman you’re gallantly driving home when she insists, “Stop! Pull over here!” It was a time when even the most intelligent of men would grasp for excuses. “I left my wife and took up with Valeska because I’d told her all my stories,” one bright architect confessed to Bill. Fatuous or philosophical? It made no difference, he was down the road. And so was Valeska after she’d heard all his stories. The Flying Pie reported all.
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| June, 1978, Arlington Park; Bill's first race win |
“My Kingdom For A Horse!”
In 1975, Bill bought a 40-acre farm in Orange Lake and commenced to race thoroughbred horses. The Pie celebrated that ride, which extended for forty years, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as the dream shall live. The adventure took him as far west as Chicago and St. Louis, as far north as New Hampshire and as far south as the bougainvillea-covered walls of Hialeah Race Track, a genteel and magical place from a prior era which soothed the mind, delighted the eye and let one’s spirits soar. The Hialeah clubhouse elite still dressed in the threads of yesterday, the women were like visions from Vogue and the money flowed like champagne. Gentlefolk no longer travelled to the clubhouse gate in railroad passenger cars, but the sentimental management insisted the tracks remain. Each day before the seventh race, a man in a small boat would row out on the infield lake to advise the large flamingo colony it was time to perform, and the striking birds would take to the air for a graceful two-minute swoop over the terrain. Sophisticated sportsmen raised their glasses to the aerialists, the winning horses and anyone lucky enough to be there in the days of wine and roses. The Flying Pie learned a lot about bowed tendons.
On The Road Again
Over the course of the last 13 years, Siobhan and Bill have trekked from the rainforests of Washington state to the rockbound coast of Maine; climbed the 600 steps to Yosemite’s Vernal Falls and descended by foot and mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon; negotiated the chilly straits of Zion’s Virgin Narrows and walked through the Golden Gate’s gales four times. The Flying Pie has been along for every ride, providing tales of adventure, travel notes for future truckers and pictorial evidence of the struggle.
Ever been to the Ape Caves of Mount St. Helens? The Pie has and found them scary. Our heroes showed up early in the morning before a single park ranger had arrived and made their way into one of the two caverns, at the end of which would be a light at the end of the tunnel signaling a merry trail through a lovely forest. Except it didn’t.
As the passage narrowed and the duo was forced to crawl on their stomachs, Siobhan took the lead, being the smaller wriggler. She dragged herself over one last impediment and was finally able to stand, expecting the passageway to Gloryland to appear. All she got was a stubborn wall. Bill, who rarely got the opportunity, was forced to crawl backwards till the cave opened back up. Turns out the cave untaken was the one with the opening on both ends and our guys had misread the tiny map. Oh, well. On the way out we met several other misembarking optimists and saved them the trouble. It’s an ill wind that bloweth no man good.
“Get Me To The Church On Time!”
Siobhan Ellison’s 29-year relationship trial ended in 2016 with a final grade of A+, so it was finally time for a wedding at the Little Chapel of the Flowers in old Las Vegas. The Flying Pie sent out all the announcements, paid for the Glam Squad and sent home pictures of the bride. Meanwhile, Bill had a small problem.
After analyzing to death the question of whether to accompany Siobhan in the chapel’s pickup limo or follow in his own car, Mr. K. opted for the latter since the ceremony was to be followed by a drive to the Valley of Fire west of Vegas and he was trying to avoid a timewasting stop back at the hotel to pick up the car. It was a Saturday, however, and the valet parking crew at the Palazzo Hotel was overwhelmed with traffic. B.K. finally got his vehicle over twenty minutes later, which left him latish for his assigned marriage spot at 1 p.m. The venue had weddings scheduled every thirty minutes that day and if you were over five minutes late they pushed the ejector button and you had to find a drive-thru replacement altar somewhere else.
Worse, exiting the hotel in a big hurry, he turned the wrong way on ultrabusy Las Vegas Boulevard and compounded the problem. By the time he got turned around, a timely arrival was virtually impossible. He called Siobhan and gave her the bad news, which she took with surprisingly good grace. Then began perhaps the fastest drive down The Strip seen since the 2007 Vegas Grand Prix, which did not face the inconvenience of stop lights. Neither did Bill, for that matter, speeding up and slowing down in turn to avoid stopping once on the way to the Chapel. He arrived at 1:02, three minutes before cancellation, and handed off the car in the parking lot. Siobhan took his arm, smiled and they marched in like nothing ever happened. The Flying Pie knew, however, and soon revealed all the sordid details. T.F.P---sees all, knows all, reports all. Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you agitated.
Dancing In The Dark
“Sometimes I get a great notion to jump in the river and drown.”---Lead Belly & John Lomax
Once upon a time, an 80-year-old ex-head shop owner began missing his friends of yesteryear and decided to do something about it. Despite dire warnings of death by a thousand cuts from just about everyone, he ran up to the roof of his Gainesville estate and turned on the Potsignal, which bellowed into the night and lit up cell phones across the Earth. Eighteen months later, planes trains and automobiles were carting ancient hippies disguised as regular citizens back to Hogtown for the already-legendary Last Tango. The Flying Pie did its part, regularly pumping up the volume and rustling the bushes. A thousand ragged rowdies eventually showed up at Heartwood Soundstage on May 7, 2022 to celebrate old friendships, dance to the music and cry in their beer. “Bill said he would create an emotional maelstrom,” declared Will Thacker, presiding DJ from back in the day. “He did that in spades. Everybody ran out of hankies.”
The Pie, of course, was right on the job, reporting all the sordid details, replete with photos of the action, rumors of hair-raising scandals and directions on how to find your underwear. When the Last Tango In Gainesville movie premiered in Mount Dora to rave reviews, The Flying Pie was right there on the red carpet interviewing all the divas. When Chuck LeMasters was nominated for Best Hippie in a Musical, the Pie sat in the airplane seat next to him on his way to Hollywood. When he lost in an outrageous voting fix, the Pie sat up late into the night with him, smoking weed and pretending not to care.
And now, finally, we have the Hogtown Opry, an enterprise which will undoubtedly alter and illuminate our times, and The Flying Pie has a primo seat stageside, the better to keep an eye on troublemakers like Farnell Cole, Gina Hawkins and Tom Shed. The days ahead may be cloudy or sunny, we’re in or we’re out of the money, but The Pie’s with you always, come rain or come shine.
That’s all, folks….
