Chapter One: And so it begins...

1965

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

The Byrds Bring Harold Euene Clark Into My Life

Late March

It all began the night I heard a song on the radio, at the end of March. It was the same station, KRLA, that I'd been listening to since I first got into rock 'n roll at age nine. At the time I first heard the song I was with my then best friend, Kaye Simpson. I'd known Kaye ever since we met in fifth grade. She, myself, and some of our friends were all in the car when the song that would change my life forever came on. We were cruising Van Nuys Boulevard at the time. The song, I later found out, was known as "Mr. Tambourine Man". It was the most beautiful and unique music I'd ever heard. From then on, whenever that song came on the radio, I'd tell whoever was around me to "SHUT UP!" so I could hear every bit of it. I also found out that the name of the band who did Mr. Tambourine Man, was called "The Birds". When I first heard the name, I pictured in my mind a bunch of cute, feathery soft little birds singing and playing tiny guitars and all other instruments that were used in their music.

I finally found out the real spelling of the name, B-y-r-d-s, when I saw an article about them in one of Kaye's rock 'n roll star magazines, along with a picture of them. They had suits on but aside from that, all of them save the tall blond guy, looked kind of "weird" to me. Then I read that they were Americans instead of British, as I had naturally assumed, since most of the cool music was coming out of there at that time. I was disappointed and kind of "disgusted," and turned off to the Byrds. But not for long. I could not escape that beautiful music and those singing voices! That kept pulling at me no matter what I expected and/or was disappointed in.

(More To Come... as I remember)

April

From the first time I'D heard Mr. Tambourine Man, with its totally beautiful music and singing, I knew that something had taken hold of me. I was literally captured by that "something" and it kept drawing and compelling me toward the Byrds. All this and I couldn't figure out why. I'd heard beautiful music all my life, as my mother turned me onto classical music from the time I was a baby, also she had lived with Alfred Apaka, a Hawaiian musician of some note who was my favorite step-dad during my time in Hawaii when I was about four years old, and her dad, my Grandpa K. D. Hubbard, along with all his family were Texas bluegrass musicians. I'd been around musicians and music all my life. By late April to mid May, I had become determined to find and meet the Byrds. I bought the Mr. Tambourine Man single, and I played it a lot. One day I decided to see what the other side sounded like. Again I was blown away. The "B" song was even more beautiful than Mr. Tambourine Man! And that one voice! I wondered, Did Bob Dylan write that one too? So I looked at the label and saw "G. Clark." I thought, Who the hell is G. Clark? Never heard of him! However in some kind of powerful, psychic, intuitive way I can't put into words, I just knew I was "destined" to not only see and meet the Byrds, but also that I was "meant" to be with one of them in a "boyfriend-girlfriend/Significant Other/Soulmate" relationship. I was soon to "find" my Soulmate, but it would take years to realize the fact/truth of it. Also this thing that was happening to me was so compelling, real, and powerful that it was almost scary. I'd always been sensitive, intuitive, psychic, etc., being an artist and all, but this was totally blowing my mind.

By now, Kaye and I, like so many others of our age group, including those both younger and older, had become "infected" by the Beatles and the whole British/English thing. We started dressing like the girls in the in the British magazines, in photos of the Beatles' and talking with fake English accents. We'd tell people that were British, and sisters, and from a wealthy family, and that we came from Leeds, England. According to our story, we had our own limo driver who took us to school, and all sorts of fantastic stuff. Im surprised anybody actually believed us, and probably most didn't. We'd been hanging out in Hollywood, going to places on the Sunset Strip, and had left the San Fernando Valley behind, except for when we had to go home, to my mother's and my maternal grandmother, Nana's house.

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

Seeing the Byrds For The First Time, On Television

Late April ~ Early May

Kay, John, (a real British guy) and I, all were ready and waiting to watch the television show, Shindig. We were at "English John's" house. He was cool; he was coaching Kaye and I in our English accents, the expressions that real English people use, and all that kind of stuff. Shindig was one of the two or three shows, as I remember, that had on all the current, cool rock bands. Shindig was presenting the Byrds; it was their first performance on television as far as I know, or can remember. I was so excited, to finally get a good look at these makers of magically beautiful music and singing!

I don't know what I was expecting, really, but what the Byrds looked like wasn't anything I might have imagined. There they were. In the magazine picture I'd seen of them, they had worn suits and had a similar look to the Beatles. But when they came on to do their act on Shindig, my first reaction was a kind of shock! Not only were they "mere Americans", but they all had on old jeans and t-shirts; and one, the guy playing the tambourine and singing, had a big nose and ratty looking hair, his bangs too long and all scraggly, falling in his eyes! Yuk! I thought, that's gotta be the biggest dork I've ever seen! I had a very strong feeling about that guy however, but I did my best to suppress it. I told myself, that dorky guy can't possibly be the force that is pulling me to the Byrds! Then there was a little fat guy who looked like he had no teeth, and he was way worse than "the guy with the big nose". Also there was that other one with the frizzy red hair who made funny looking faces while he sang, but he was wearing those very cool little square sunglasses. The only "cute" ones, I thought, were the drummer and bass player. From that time on, for quite awhile (a whole month at most), I was "once again" turned off to the Byrds. They all looked like a bunch of slobs. But I could not escape their music. It was magic and one of these Byrds had cast his spell on me.

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

Met Michael Clarke at the Stratford-on-Sunset

Mid ~ Late May

It was about three weeks later Michael Clarke came into the Stratford-on-Sunset, one night when Kaye and I had been hanging out there, and the doorman, a real jerk in my opinion, came up to us, looking very excited, eyes all aglow, and said, "Mike Clarke is here!" I replied in my best sarcastic way, "Who the Hell is Mike Clarke?!" The Jerk told me, "Oh, he's just only the drummer of the Byrds!" So even though irritated and disgusted with The Jerk's attitude, behavior and demeanor, my intuition awoke and my boredom was gone. I had been born and raised in Hollywood. My Uncle Jack (his name was John Shrum, which he went by in his public life) was the Art Director for the Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, et al. Therefore I was not impressed with celebrities especially those who had star-attitudes, or the people who get all starry eyed over them, scream, act like suck-up-toadies, and all that, in the show biz scene. My Dad and Step Mom knew and associated with all those show biz people. I have some bits of memory from when I was about five or six years old of going to dinner at Dinah Shore's house; then I've some bits of memory of going to a party with my Dad and Betty at someone's house on Balboa island, and we had to ride in a motor boat to get there (I think I was perhaps four or five years old); and there were lots of others, but that's all I can recall. However I was forcibly sheltered from that world by my Dad, from the time I was nine years old, to my intense anger. So, though fascinated and so powerfully drawn to the Byrds, along with my intuition and compelling conviction that I was "meant to be with one of them", I looked askance at cocky star-attitude celebrities and, screaming, hysterical "fans/autograph hounds".

Michael Clarke did indeed come into the "Stratford," as we all nicknamed it. He looked like a tall Brian Jones. I found that I had liked the Rolling Stones' music as much, if not just a little more than, the Beatles'. Having been around the car-club, surfers, biker guys and short-haired conventional type guys mainly, I thought Michael was one of the most "beautiful" men I had ever seen, especially compared to those others. My nineteen year-old mind jumped to the conclusion that the "Byrd I was destined for" was him! Michael Clark was stuck-up and full-of-himself, though I still thought he was very handsome and that he must the reason for all this magnet-thing with me and the Byrds.

After the club was closed Kaye and I (she always let or asked me to drive her Mom's car) were cruising from the Stratford to go to Ben Frank's restaurant, the "in" after-hours hang out. And there was Michael Clarke himself, walking along the Strip. I said to Kaye, "We just gotta pick up this guy! It's a chance to finally meet one of these Byrds!" Kay had been less impressed with him than I, and that's saying a lot. She was the extrovert and impulsive one who usually went right to the guys and started chatting and flirting with them while I've always been more aloof and reserved. She wasn't really into picking him up, but I pulled over anyway and said, "Hey, want a ride?" to Michael. He gave us a cheesy fake smile, started to walk on, then stopped, came back, and said, "Yeah, OK. I got nothin' else to do," and he got in the car with us. He made sure he sat in the middle, between Kaye and I. We were all high on diet pills, and he said he had more back at his hotel room. Since there were only the three of us, he said, "Let's stop at my buddie's motel and get him."

So we went to the Tropicana, and Michael had Kaye and I wait in the car, while he went in to get his pal, Gene. When Michael came out alone, I felt rather disappointed; however Michael explained that Gene was too tired to go out and party and sent his regrets. That made me feel a little better. We decided we would still all three go to Michael's hotel room and party. So we went there, at the Sunset ("Something-Or-Other") Hotel. His was a plush room with two double beds, and the usual hotel room furnishings. When we walked into the room, there were two or three girls there. Michael got angry at them and asked how they had got in. They said they had told the manager that they were friends of Michael's and that the manager let them in. (I was to end up becoming close friends with most of them later on.) Then Michael told the three girls, "Get outta here! I've got company! Split!" And they looked at Kaye and I with Dagger Eyes and left.

Once more or less settled in the room, Michael went to get his stash of diet pills. They were in the "kleenex" holder in the bathroom. However when he went to get them, and found that they were gone, he immediately decided they must have been stolen by the maid! He ranted, raved, and got all freaked out and paranoid. Then when we three went to get some more from Kaye's and my connection, who never showed up, at the Carolina Pines coffee shop, on the corner of Sunset and La Brea, Michael insisted on leaving and that we return to the Strip and then to his hotel room. On our way back up Sunset, Michael got to thinking that every car in back of us was the plain-clothes feds or cops. Michael took us to a place I'd been to with my Mom back when I was in Jr. High school, The Gaiety, located on Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Doheny Drive. Here Michael got one bagel and shared it amongst the three of us, and we each had a cup of coffee. I remember Kaye bitching to me, into my ear, that Michael was a cheapskate! Then we went back to his hotel.

Later the phone rang. Kaye and Michael had ended up together, on the other bed nearest the room's door and the bathroom. At first I felt a little disappointed, but in truth, I didn't mind all that badly. I found I liked Michael more as a brother-friend than I would have as a lover/boyfriend. There was just something in me that said Michael "was not the one". We were watching some great old 1950s B Sci Fi movie. So I answered the phone. A guy's voice said, "Is Mike there?" I said, "Just a minute," and handed the phone to Michael. After talking for a couple of minutes, Michael gave me the phone and said, "Listen to this." So I did. It was the Byrds' new song, I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, which was to be released on the radio either in a few days or the next day. What I heard was just beautiful music. When I first heard Mr. Tambourine Man, it was actually not all the voices singing, though I didn't find that out until something like thirty five years later. I had noticed the increase in depth of the voices singing on "I Knew I'd Want You", when I'd played the B side of the Byrds' single.

Anyway, the guy came back on the line and said, "Mike?" I said, "Here, I'll put him back on the phone," and I returned it to Michael. After he hung up, he told us that had been Gene, his friend who we'd stopped off to get. I got a weird, pleasant, "tingling" feeling in my psyche and guts, and a powerful intuition�of something. Later, on our way home Kaye told me that the Byrds would be playing at Ciro's, their Opening Night being the first of June, and we, both of us, were to be Michael's guests and we would get in free all during that time if we wanted to. The gig would be on for two weeks. Now I was really jazzed. I'd finally get to see, and, most importantly, hear them, live, play that beautiful music. At this point we were still living in the Valley, but my mom had put our house up for sale.

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

The First Night At Ciro's

(Here I must state that Mr. Johnny Rogan, author of The Byrds: Timeless Flight and The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited ~ The Sequel, is in grave error in stating that this major "launching of the Byrds" gig took place in April 1965. The real date was from 1 June through 14 or 15 June 1965. The Ciro's gig was as I stated. They did play a gig there in April, but it was not widely known about and not very many people showed up. I wasn't at that show, but Kathy West told me all about it. I know without a doubt about the June gig, because I was there.)

1 June

When Kaye and I got to Ciro's, and told the doorman that we were guests of Michael Clarke, we had to wait while he went and got Michael to confirm. When Michael came out, he brought us in himself, and he got a table right at the edge of the dance floor and close to the stage for Kaye and I. Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone was playing on the Ciro's-Radio. They had a small enclosed booth and some D. J. who played all of the Byrds' album, Bob Dylan, and the other top rock bands, during the Byrds' breaks, so people could continue dancing. Another song that sharply brings that night back to me, is the Rolling Stones',I Can't Get No Satisfaction. Ever since, to this day, when I hear these songs, I can sharply recall being in Ciro's. There were all the people, certain perfumes floating in the air, the atmosphere of excited anticipation, and more. I remember seeing Sonny and Cher and all these other top performers of the time. There was a little kid outside who asked me to go back in and get James Brown's autograph for him, which I did.

I met Vito, Carl, Beatle Bob and his girlfriend among a bunch of others that night too. Michael introduced some of them to me, and Carl had introduced himself. At age fourteen I had opened up to realizing that I was a bohemian-beatnik-hipster. I'd never really fit in with conventional people and things. I was even suspended from school, more than once, for dressing all in black, wearing no lipstick, and heavy eye make up, to name just a couple of reasons. This first night at Ciro's, and from then on, aside from the Byrds, I realized that I had at last found my own people. In this respect, Kaye was not at all like me.

During the first set I took a break from dancing to stand leaning against a pillar near the dance floor and stage and watch the Byrds. That "destiny" feeling was back. I said to myself, "OK. Michael is Kaye's boyfriend. So which one of these guys is for me?" Just as I was looking the bass player over, my eyes and attention were sharply pulled away to that tambourine player, who, instantly, simultaneously, jerked his head around and looked right at me, right into my eyes, as if I'd called or spoken his name. He still looked pretty "weird" to me; he must have cut his bangs himself, and they were way too short, and crooked! Somehow then I "knew". The accompanying intuition and feelings I experienced were vivid to say the least! I felt a deep familiarity, an intimate closeness and a deja `vu as well as a sense that we were married or something! It also felt like we knew each other forever...but I don't know how to put them any better into words. Also, a voice inside me said, implacably, "This is the one for you. In fact he's the whole reason for all of this magnetic thing and being drawn to the Byrds from the start! It's him that this has all been about". To put it mildly, I was speechless and floored, to mention just a couple of the things I felt! I also felt torn between wanting to hide from him and opening myself up to him completely.

After the second set I went outside for fresh air, then back into the club and sat on a couch in the front lobby along with a lot of other girls and guys. While I was sitting there, Michael and Gene, both of them wearing turtle-neck shirts and blue and white striped Seersucker jackets, came out into the lobby. They stood together next to the cigarette machine, Gene draping himself against it. They were both staring at me. Michael said something into Gene's ear, and Gene intensified his gawking at me! But he didn't, and apparently wouldn't, come over and say "Hi" or anything to me. I'd said "Hi" to Michael and he'd replied friendly enough. Besides Michael should have introduced Gene and I to each other, especially as Gene had been the guy we'd gone to invite to join us that first night Kaye, Michael and I met! I finally became annoyed at Gene's staring at me but not approaching me. It was obvious that, despite his interest in me, Gene also was full-of-himself and "stuck-up" as well. He expected me to get up and run to him. He had another think coming! I gave Gene an annoyed expression, got up from the couch, then stuck my nose up at him and walked into the Ladies Room. I stayed in there until I heard the Byrds back onstage and playing what was their last set of the night. Then I came out and re-joined Kaye at our table. From that night on, Gene was always staring at me and watching me. But he would never come over to me and talk to me! I was damned if I was going to go to him, like some air-head star-chaser!

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

At The Byrds Big' Party

3 June

It was the third night of their two-week gig at Ciro's. I had not been planing to go out. I was broke, and hence I had not taken a bath nor dressed up. I had on jeans, and a slobby t-shirt, and my hair was pretty ratty looking. Kaye had said she had a date with Michael, and in so many words, "three's a crowd". However at the last minute Kaye came into our room and said she had to have me along! She wanted me to play chauffeur and drive her mother's car, as usual. I tried to get her to at least give me time to get a shower and dress up, but she wouldn't. So I had to go right then with her as I was. She went so far as to give me one whole diet pill to provide me some incentive. Well I did want to see the Byrds, and continue trying to figure Gene out. So I went.

After the nights' shows at Ciro's finished, I figured she'd go off with Michael and I'd drive her car home to our place. No such luck. I had to go to the big Byrds' party, which was for the guys. I now remember it was also Michael's nineteenth birthday. And the party must've been something of a chance at bringing up their rating, as well. What was more disagreeable to me was that I'd seen Gene with, over the course of the evening, several of those starlets and models, who all had "perfect hair", beautiful expensive clothes, etc. I hated them at first sight! Of course I didn't let on about these feelings. I was way too proud to do that. Gene had apparently settled on one for his "date". Inwardly I stewed. I just wanted to go home and hide! I felt like I looked frightful, penniless, and ratty...not at all attractive... especially to Gene! Of course Kaye insisted I drive her Mom's car, and had made arrangements to meet Michael there at the party. He had told us he'd get us some diet pills and give them to us once we were all there.

It was quite the caravan of all these cars driving from Ciro's heading up into the Hollywood Hills to someone's big house. It had a very long driveway, almost like an unpaved country road. Once there, parking places were almost impossible to find, but I finally struggled the car into a place I'd found about six cars deep from the entrance to the house. For some reason everybody was using the back or kitchen-door-to-outside, as a main entrance. Upon our arrival, Michael met us just inside the door, and mentioned to us that he and Gene were in the bathroom shooting up meth, and that he didn't want to get us into that. And so he told us he would try and see if he could find some diet pills for Kaye and I. He needn't have worried about me becoming a "needle-shooting-junkie", because I've always hated needles, and still do! I always thought (and still do) that it was very caring of Michael and Gene to want to protect Kaye and I from getting started into using needles and shooting up. I've never forgotten that.

At first Kaye, who of course was dressed to the nines and looked great, the way I wanted to look, especially now, "made" me go into the living room with she and Michael. Whoever was the owner of this house and the host of this party had Dionne Warwick's current album playing, over and over again. Whenever I hear anything from it nowadays, I always think of that night at that house and party. The room was full of those detested starlets and models, as well as girls like Kaye and me, lots of guys, all of the Byrds of course, and older men and women too, who I think were friends, managers, press people, and the like. Soon Kaye and Michael wandered off, and left me standing alone against a wall, where I watched all the other people. The diet pill Kaye had given me was almost worn off, and I felt crappy and totally self-conscious. Then something made me look over at the couch to my right and there was Gene sitting with what had to be, so I was convinced, his "date". She was one of those starlets or models. And of course, he was staring right at me, and wouldn't stop. I think I looked at him as if he were some kind of unpleasant insect or something; but he continued to stare at me and watched me anyway, undaunted. The fact that he was with someone other than me made me feel humiliated and furious, not to mention that the girl was one of those rich, "glamourous", etc., ones! My reactions and feelings were totally irrational, but there it is.

After chatting with a few people here and there in the living room, all the while trying my best to ignore Gene and not succeeding very well, I swept myself out of the living room and retired to the kitchen. I stepped outside for a moment and saw McGuinn and David Crosby toking away on a joint and I smiled knowingly at them; they both responded with surprised grins and offered me a toke which I gladly accepted. Once back in the kitchen I looked in the refrigerator for liquor, and finding some wine, poured myself a glass. If I couldn't get wired up on diet pills then I would get drunk! There wasn't enough booze that I could find in the kitchen to get more than a buzz. So I ate some salad out of a big bowl that was part of all the food laid out on the kitchen table, and then I sat down at it. I was hiding from Gene, it's as simple as that. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to just go home and crawl in bed! Of course I couldn't do that. So I sat in the kitchen for most of the remainder of the party, occasionally chatting with whoever came in and sat at the table. I think at some point Gene came into the kitchen, and I may have gone into the bathroom to hide, but I'm not sure after so long ago. I really wanted to hide from Gene, though I don't really know why. Now as I look back, I realize what I felt was that I was "not good enough for him", and other symptoms of low self-esteem along with additional basic psychological problems one has when one is the child of an alcoholic, in this case, the alcoholic was my mother.

Finally the long night and party came to an end. I was still in the kitchen. I'd asked Kaye to get one of Michael's friends - he didn't have a car of his own at that time - to give her a ride home, so I could leave. But she wasn't having any of that. When people began departing I felt a tremendous relief. However, it was about forty-five minutes before Kaye said I should go and get the car, and that we were leaving. Once we left the house via that kitchen-back door, I was standing around with Kaye and Michael and some other people. We were waiting for the others, who had given Michael his ride to the party, to get their car and drive up to where Michael and Kaye and whoever else it was that were going with them were waiting. Naturally, to my dismay, Gene and his "date" came out before we could leave. Then Gene asked me, "Would you move your car so my friends I and can get out of here?" This was the totally packed yard and driveway of cars. At first I looked askance at him and gave him a saccrine-sweet smile and said, "Sorry. I don't have the keys. It's not my car anyway, it's Kaye's car." Kaye, being with Michael, promptly handed her car keys over to me, while I shot her a look of sarcastic "thanks". Gene, still standing in front of me, kind of smiled and asked me again to please move the car. I held up the keys, dangling them in front of his nose and said, "Here, you move the car. I'm sure you're a much better driver than me!" Gene looked into my green eyes with his green eyes, sincere entreaty in them, then ever so gently laid his hand on my right arm and asked me, "Please? I would really appreciate it so much." I gave him some Dagger Eyes of my own, then stormed off to move the car, muttering "JERK!" as I walked away and toward Kaye's car. I know Gene heard me. I wasn't whispering, even though I didn't yell or speak at conversational level. I "hated" him for being so nice and making me feel unable to be mean to him, tell him to "fuck off" and refuse his kind request, etc.; and I felt this way because of what had happened at our first sight of each other, and I did find myself very much attracted to him, despite myself. It was a small nightmare getting the car out of its place, and then into the line of cars trying to get down the long driveway and out to the road, but I finally made it. Kaye came up to the car with Michael and told me to go cruising around for awhile as she was going with him somewhere first and then to his hotel. I was to go meet them there in about three hours. I was broke, coming down off diet pills and in a mood fit to "kill" someone...Gene and his fucking date! But of course I did not let myself think such things consciously. After driving around for two hours I finally gave up and went to Michael's hotel parking lot. I tried to sleep in the car, but I was unable to even lie still, let alone relax. So I finally went up to Michael's room, knocked on the door and he let me in. He and Kaye were on the bed, this hotel had only the one, and there were two guys there. These were Cupid Bob and Brian McClean, whom I'd become acquainted with since meeting Michael and the Byrds. They wanted to leave, so I gave them a ride somewhere, perhaps to Vito's, but it could've been somewhere else, I've forgotten now. When I returned, Michael was in the bathroom and Kaye pointed to a hair-net which was his! We were both cracking up laughing; but then we had to stop and we didn't dare look at each other for fear of laughing loud enough for Michael to hear and see us once he was back in the room with us! I tried to sleep on the floor after Michael and Kaye got into the bed together, and he turned off the lights. However, sleeping for me was impossible as well because of the little noises coming from the bed. Finally, though, they were quiet; and I think we all fell asleep for about one and a half hours. Then there was all this noise and it woke us up. It must have been eight or nine in the morning. Michael went on a tear, calling the front desk and yelling at whoever was on the other end of the line, that he had to sleep, that he worked at night! Well of course the hotel people would not halt their roofing repair work, not even for a Byrd; so Michael yelled even louder into the phone saying, "I'm outta here!" Then he threw all his things together, and had Kaye and I take him to Jim McGuinn's place, which we did and Michael stayed there.

After spending about twenty minutes at McGuinn's, Kaye and I left to go back to my mom's house in the Valley where we were both living. On our way up Highland Avenue to get to the freeway, I saw Gene, alone, walking into an apartment building's entrance. It was an archway covered with climbing roses. I watched him as I drove, while What the World Needs Now is Love was playing on the car's radio. I felt a kind of longing for Gene and "hated" myself for it. He looked so lovable, vulnerable and alone, but that was only my subjective point of view, or so I told myself. To this day still, whenever I hear that song, the memory of seeing Gene alone walking under those arched roses, and my feelings about and for him, along with that powerful sense of "destiny" about he and myself, comes back to me as clear as if I were back in time living the entire event over again.

Though Kaye was Michael's girlfriend, for some reason I could never fathom, Kaye was too timid to go backstage and go to Michael. This was a real puzzle to me as Kaye was the rampant extrovert of the two of us. She always sent me backstage. One of these times Kaye sent me to go get Michael, I saw McGuinn, sitting all alone in the backstage lounge. I asked him where Michael was and he told me where and pointed toward a hallway that was on a level about three steps up. On my way up the steps, Gene came down the hall. I thought, Oh, no! It's that weird guy! Then as we passed each other on the stairs, he looked right into my eyes, and said in a kind of shy, sweet, soft voice, "Hi". So I said, "Hi", back. Inside my head I was saying to myself in wonder and surprise, Why, he's nice! I liked him more after that. He was no longer a "dork".

It was sometime during the Ciro's June gig that Kaye and I got our own apartment in Hollywood, on Cherokee Ave., in what was called The Cherokee Apartments. I had lived there with my Nana in 1962 while I was in eleventh grade at Hollywood High School. Kaye and I had our rent payed by my and her moms, until they finally told us they weren't paying our rent anymore. Kaye moved back in with her mother in Anaheim, while my mom had sold the house in the Valley and she and Nana took a two bedroom place upstairs in the same building where Kaye and I had gotten the single apartment. So I moved back in with my Nana and mom; and Kaye would spend several days a week with us. (We were still living in the Valley during the first nights of the Ciro's gig, and it was no more than several days or a week at the most that our move to Hollywood took place. I do know that we were living in Hollywood before the Byrds' June gig at Ciro's ended.)

The following was sometime, no longer than two weeks, after the Byrds' gig at Ciro's. Kaye and I were at the club with some people we had met and become friends with. One of them, a girl who did not believe for a moment that Kaye and I were British, introduced us to Chad and Jeremy, also telling them that Kaye and I were only pretending to be British. I still remember bickering with either Chad or Jeremy - I don't remember which one - that "I was too English!" Of course both of them knew that we weren't British and they would not be persuaded otherwise. I was quite embarrassed to be caught-out, and a bit angry with Kaye, although our pretense was as much my doing as hers. It was not long after that incident when I dropped my whole "British act" thing, and from then on I was really into being myself. It seemed to a lot of the people I eventually met that being born and raised in Hollywood, and a few years scattered here and there of having lived and gone to some of my high school, as well, in Honolulu, Hawaii and Sacramento, was just as "glamorous" as being a native of the United Kingdom. However, Kaye kept up her pose of being British, even down to her accent, for years. She was still into this pretense the last time I saw her, which was sometime in 1984!

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

The Byrds Go on the U.S. Tour & Ciro's Is Shut Down

Late June ~ July

I remember that the Byrds' U.S. Tour took place sometime in July. The Byrds went to England in August, and truly became "America's answer to the Beatles", and gained the status of major rock stars. I'd been invited to go with Vito and his dancers, for the U.S. tour in July, but as I didn't have enough money of my own, and my parents would not oblige me, I declined. Now I really wish that I had gone with them! Nobody had told me that one must bring their own money.

It was also during this time when Ciro's was closed down and made into a "teenagers' nightclub" called It's Boss. I was not the only one to hate it. It brought all these underage kids to the Strip; and they brought the cops, who began harassing everybody, asking to see I.D.s, "Why are you wearing sunglasses at night?", etc. All of us from Ciro's migrated to such clubs as the Crescendo (which became The Trip), the London Fog, another very cool and fun little "hole in the wall" club on Melrose Avenue who's name I no longer remember, and a club named The Sewers of Paris, which was a short walking distance from my home, until after The Trip was opened. At that time the Whiskey`a`Go`Go wasn't that popular with our crowd, yet.

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

Mystic Acres

June ~ December

There was a place located on or near Santa Monica Boulevard; it was in an apartment building, and Mystic Acres was in one of the apartments, which were more like small houses, bungalows. And this place was where everybody went for good Acid, pot, and an assortment of pills and powders to "make you as high as you wanna go". I was introduced to it by Michael Clarke with Kaye, and someone I'd met through Michael and/or the other Byrds. I do remember going there one night with some guys in a V.W. van, and we got some really good pot laced with Acid. It could've been Kaye and I; Kaye, myself, Candy or perhaps I was with Candy, Kathy, Flo and Marilyn. I do remember that this night we'd left from Candy's house, so she would have been along. This particular night was perhaps just before or just after the Byrds had gone to England, and then were doing the Turn, Turn, Turn recording for the upcoming album. We went out ,after being at Mystic Acres, and I know one of the places was to Ben Frank's. Perhaps we went to some of the other clubs we frequented since they'd closed Ciro's.

There was another time, I was out with Candy, and we went to Mystic Acres and whoever it was lived there gave us some pot and we smoked about a joint between the two of us. I don't think we stayed too long there after we'd got stoned. When we left the apartment all of a sudden both of us could hardly move. It was like we'd each taken about ten downers! At the time I didn't know what was in that pot, but I knew it was not Acid. At first I got kind of freaked-out because I didn't know "what was happening to me", and Candy wasn't much better off than me. We had to hold onto each other just to stand up and walk. We got to the street and only lasted about five minutes, if even that much, before we had to sit on the curb, leaning against each other to keep from falling over, with our thumbs out, hitchhiking! We decided we'd go up to Chris Hillman's house at the top of Kirkwood Drive. I think this may have been during the time Gene was living with that dancer, Jackie, but I'm not sure. I really wanted to see Gene mainly right then; somehow he always made me feel safe, comforted, etc., especially in stressful situations (which I felt I was in now), even if we were still more or less just acquaintances technically. Anyway, the idea of going to Chris's was a good idea to me as well. I liked Chris additionally as another brother-friend, the same as Michael. To me Chris was a nice guy who I felt relaxed around, even if I did not know him as well as I knew Michael, Gene, Kathy, Candy, and the others.

Finally somebody stopped and gave Candy and I a ride up to the end of Kirkwood Drive, and we walked the rest of the way to Chris's house. On the way, we'd gotten the people who gave us the ride to buy us some sodas and a bottle of water, as we were "dying of thirst". Chris wasn't home, but we just hung out on his big (patio sized, wooden) front porch. At first all we could do was lie down and look at the stars, and drank our sodas. At that point we both just wanted to come down somewhat, so we'd still be stoned but not incapacitated. It took the sugar in the sodas about one and a half hours to finally bring us to that state. I think, since Chris didn't come home while we were there, we finally hitchhiked to the Strip, and then to either the Crescendo, if this was the time before it became The Trip, or one of our other hang-outs.

(More to come...as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

Madcap Adventures On The Strip and In The Trip

Late August

Kathy West, Flo, I don't remember her last name, Candy Lake, Marilyn Miller and myself were all stoned on diet pills, cheap wine, or Romalar cough syrup, and pot one night in the last two weeks of August. I had taken my first Acid Trip during the first week of that month. The Byrds, who had just, not more than two weeks before this night, returned from their fame generating England tour, would be playing at the Trip for two weeks straight, beginning on the first of September. There was a big "Coming Attraction" display, which included two life-size photo-posters adhered to each side of the Trip's east and west walls. One of us had jokingly expressed the notion of taking one of the posters. I think it was Kathy and Flo, the most brazen and impulsive of the five of us, were the ones to come up with the idea of actually doing just that! At first, though I wanted to, I was kind of apprehensive about what might happen if we got caught. Kathy and Flo talked the rest of us into just going for it.

Once our minds were made up, we waited until about three or four in the morning, when the Trip was closed and the streets pretty much deserted. It was Kathy and Flo who began pulling at the life-size photo, but soon we were all working together at it, laughing all the while. Once we'd gotten it off the wall, we all carried it off and left the Strip for a more private place to take the photo-poster. I'm not sure just where we went to do this. I keep seeing us in a house, room, or an apartment, while the photo was divided up. Kathy, Flo and the others, took me to a tiny house located just in back of the apartment building on the corner of Melrose and La Cienega boulevards. They told me this was where Michael, Gene and Chris had lived in their "pre-fame and fortune" days. It was most likely that this little house is where we went to divide the photo-poster.

There Kathy, Flo and Candy, I believe, began tearing the photo into strips very carefully. Each strip contained a life-size picture of each Byrd. Anyway, since all but myself had known all the Byrds for about one and a half years before they became first the Jet Set, The Beefeaters, then finally, the Byrds, and got famous, the girls insisted on "first dibs." Kathy had a crush on Chris Hillman so she took his picture-strip. Flo liked Jim McGuinn and David Crosby both so she took McGuinn's picture. Candy got David, and Marilyn took Michael. I was attracted to Gene but thought he was too stuck-up and unapproachable, so I resisted at first; just as I tried to separate myself from my feelings for and about him. But all of the girls insisted I have Gene's picture. So I accepted it.

Inside I felt kind of happy and glad I had "ended up with Gene ", even though I didn't want to like him let alone have any romantic and sexual feelings for him. That was futility however, as there was this powerful bond between us that had awakened that opening night at Ciro's when we first made eye contact. Anyway after we each had our own Byrd life-size photo-strip from that big poster, we wandered the back streets of West Hollywood picking up such cool trophies as a Stop sign which some drunk/stoned driver must have hit pretty hard as it was lying on the sidewalk; some knickknacks we lifted out of a table full of goodies some antique store had unwisely left out in the open; and perhaps one of those road construction cones. I don't remember now all of what we acquired that night, but we each got and took several souvenirs, along with "our Byrd," home with us. This was one of the most fun nights in my life.

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

High Autumn Begins...Fun & Wild Times In The Trip

September

The September gig at The Trip was a blast. Since none of us ever had very much money of our own we couldn't afford to pay our way into the club to see the Byrds. But, since we all knew them personally anyway, no matter if even for a few months, as was the case with Kaye and myself, we all felt that paying to see our friends was "beneath us". Of course we were at every show, every night of those two weeks. On the Opening Night Kaye, who always had lots of money which she'd steal from her mom, was about the only one who did pay. (Again, I find this perplexing because Kaye was still Michael's girlfriend-or one of them, at least.) The rest of us hung out in back of the Trip, where the bands' entrance-doors, and the backstage windows were. I remember clearly Michael and Chris opening the doors and bringing all five of us (Kathy, Flo, Rodney B., Candy and myself) in. Once that was achieved, they told the club owners that we were their friends and guests. We got our hands stamped with an invisible seal that only showed up when a blacklight was shined on it. This was while we were backstage hanging out with the band and the other people who were in and out of the backstage: other musicians, journalists, perhaps one or two photographers, other friends of the guys whom I didn't know, and the usual assortment of models and starlets. Of course we all detested them! They all were dressed in the best, beautiful expensive clothes, their hair "just right," and so on. But we were more the real friends, no matter what we wore or how much money we did or did not have, etc.

One night I was again with Kathy, Flo, Rodney Bigenheimer, who was my "little brother" friend, along with Candy and Marilyn as well. Chris let us in after we had been sitting under one of the slightly open windows and smoking a joint. He'd smelled it, opened the window wider, saw us and brought us in. So then we went into the sitting room and smoked more pot with Chris, Michael and Gene. Gene always made me feel really shy. I think this was because he knew of that bond between us just as much as did I, and I felt "soul-naked" around him. But I loved being around him despite myself and the spirit/soul psychic-telepathic rapport between us. We were all talking, people were coming and going, while we sitting in the bandroom before the Byrds' show began it's first set. Kathy, sitting next to me, with Gene sitting across from me, kept nudging me in the ribs and whispering in my ear, telling me to look at Gene because he kept winking at me. It's funny because I was weirded-out by him, and drawn to him like a super magnet at the same time. Naturally, when I would look at Gene when Kathy told me he was again winking at me, he was no longer doing so. Either he'd have turned his head to talk to someone, or wasn't winking when I looked. He would smile shyly at me from time to time and I'd smile equally shyly back at him. I think I did catch him winking at me at least once or twice, and though loving it, all I could do was smile at him, blushing and deploring myself for reacting like a fifteen year old bashful kid! Perhaps I winked back at him on one rare occasion when this happened instead of blushing and turning shy. I sure hope I did! But it's been so many years, I am not sure anymore.

Once the Byrds were onstage and playing we girls and the one guy who had attached himself to us, fifteen or sixteen year old Rodney B., were on the dance floor, right up front next to the stage. I remember any one of the others in our crowd would always find some way to push or nudge me to where I was always dancing right in front of Gene. I would keep my head down, "hiding under my bangs ", as Kathy and Candy kept telling me not to do!

Of course in those days "Acid", (LSD), was all the rage. I had taken my first Acid Trip in early August while the Byrds were still on their England tour. I really liked Acid at that time as it put-to-sleep all my shyness, self-consciousness, hang-ups, etc.; and it opened my awareness to "cosmic consciousness" for anywhere from seven to thirteen or more hours. During one night of that enchanted two week gig, Kathy, Kaye, Candy, Marilyn, Flo and I all got some Acid and took it. When the Byrds came on for their show the guys knew, and kept doing all these weird things to play with our minds. Once McGuinn started playing electric surfer riffs on his twelve-string, and blew us away. I remember just standing there watching him and saying "Wow" over and over.

We came up with tricks of our own. The guys were often stoned on Acid too. One of our best was to wait until the four-beat break toward the end of Turn, Turn, Turn, and then we'd all yell simultaneously, "FUCK"!, or something equally colorful, before the music resumed. I can clearly still recall Gene and Michael trying so hard not to lose it and laugh their asses off onstage! It was absolutely great!

(More To Come... as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

My Being an Extra in "The Big TNT Show" Movie

September 1965 ~ January, February & March 1966

I think it was during this time that Rodney Bigenheimer had got information about a movie in the works to be called The Big TNT Show, and somehow he led me, Kathy, Flo, Candy, Marilyn, and possibly Kaye as well, into being hired to work as extras in that movie. We were paid $50 a day each when we were called to work, which was pretty steady for awhile. It was absolutely great and fun too. I look back now and really wish I'd relentlessly hounded my parents, who were always griping at me to get a job, to pay for my dues to join the Screen Actors' Guild. I'd of likely become some kind of actress and been able to support myself, and therefore be free and independent of my parents, etc. I didn't have ambition to be a movie star, but I liked doing that kind of work, and that would have made a good way, as well as fun, for me to support myself. This acting gig didn't happen until late September, through October, November and December, and into January, February and early to mid March of 1966.

Rodney B. made a nuisance of himself much of the time, which embarrassed me to no end. I think he was blessed and gifted in some way or ways I could never see. He was relentless when it came to taking photos of all the rock stars around and introducing himself to them. He actually succeeded far more than I would have expected. His antics were also actually pretty much welcomed by his "targets". Except for one night when the Rolling Stones were in town, and Rodney saw Brian Jones in the coffee house we all hung out at, Fred C. Dobbs, and Rodney took Brian's photo using a flash. With Brian being stoned on Acid, he freaked out, and decked poor little Rodney! But Rodney was a good friend, and always found neat things and people to introduce me to. I remember one night when Rodney and I were sitting at a table with some other people in The Trip, and this guy came over to our table and sat with us. Rodney introduced me to him, Michael Douglas, telling me he was Kirk Douglas's son. The "give-away-resemblance" was the cleft in his chin like his dad possessed. His hair wasn't blond, it was brown, long to the shoulders and a little bit curly/wavy. I don't remember if I just guessed it, or if either he or Rodney told me, but he turned out to be the same age as myself. Michael was a nice guy and we chatted with each other for a while.

(More To Come... as I remember)