Chapter Three "Season Two"

1967

Laurel Canyon/Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

Beginning Adventures of The New Year & Onward

January

The clearest thing I remember from this time is getting my own little place, called "The Cave", through a guy who was another good friend and musician as well, of both Kaye's and mine. He had found another place for himself, and he helped me to get the successful interview with the landlady. My Mom and Nana paid my rent for January; they wanted me to get a job and pay my own rent eventually. The place was a "disaster area" which I had to clean before I moved my things into it. The Cave was the bottom level of a three storey house, one house away from being next door to Gene's house on Stanley Hills Drive. The house next to Gene had already been taken by a bunch of girls who weren't in our crowd; and I didn't like most of them, because they were stuck-up, condescending, snotty and pretentious, etc. After I had got my "Cave" cleaned up enough to move in, I still wanted to mop the floors, and also under the fridge, which I'd had to have one of my new neighbors help me to hose all the muck out of it. I somehow got up my nerve and walked down the hill to Gene's house, knocked on the door, since his car was there, and when he opened his door, he looked so happy to see me. I asked if I could borrow his mop, and told him I'd just moved into a little place up one house from his. He was very cheery to me, and, it was pretty apparent, delighted to loan me his mop. I wanted to say something more, and I could see and feel that he did too, but we both got a case of "nerves" and "being too shy".

After I'd thoroughly cleaned my floor and the rest of the fridge, I was finished with Gene's mop. I kept it overnight, trying my best to think of some way to use returning it to him as an opening or "ice-breaker" to be invited into his house with him, again. The next day, I'd not come up with anything definitive, but I decided I should return his mop and walked down the short distance, up the stairs to Gene's front porch with it. Then I saw that his car wasn't there, and there was no answer to my knocking, so Gene was not home. I really wanted to return it and thank him in person. But the girls in the house next door to Gene's were always spying on him, his house, and everyone who went there. They made me very ill at ease, and I could see those girls peering out their window (the one that looked right down on Gene's front porch) and watching me. Like the absolute fool I called myself later, I just left Gene's mop propped against his front door. Then I walked back to my place feeling like I wanted to kick myself in the ass. I really wanted to go back and retrieve the mop and wait until Gene was home to return it to him; but I felt like the damage had been done, because all those girls in that house would see everything. It just weirded me out too much. I think Gene must've felt bad to come home and see his mop there, with no word from me, because I'd gotten such a loving and yearning vibe from him (like for some way for us to spend more quality time together, etc.,) when I'd first borrowed it.

I think it was around the end of January that the people on the top level of the house I lived in were moving out, and they told me about it. It was something like $90 per month. So Kaye got her mom to pay her half, and my Nana and Mom paid my half, and Kaye and I moved into it. It was a really cool place. The apartment was still one room, but it was way bigger than the Cave, and had a really neat balcony outside. The view was great, and I could see the upper part and the roof of Gene's house. So Kaye and I shared that place. It was just within a short time later, perhaps three or five weeks, that Gene moved away. I was really disappointed, but I did not blame him at all. Those damn girls in that house right next to his had finally driven him "over the edge". I'd have done the same; but that didn't keep me from missing him like hell and having him as my almost-next door neighbor, with all its bright possibilities.

March

Michael Clarke had at some point moved into McGuinn's former house on Mulholland Drive. One night Kaye and I walked to there from our place on Stanley Hills. Michael wasn't home, but we hung around and waited for his return. While we were sitting in his yard and looking at the night sky full of stars, I was the first to see it. I'd seen satellites, first how they moved across the sky: slow and in a straight path, and I noticed the object that had captured my attention was no satellite. It was totally silent, and it was slowly moving across the dome of the sky. What alerted me to its "strangeness" was the fact that it moved in a deliberate zig-zag fashion, and then it would stop and remain stationary, then change direction and move again at a new angle/direction. I pointed it out to Kaye, and we watched it until it disappeared into the distance. That was my first UFO sighting. Later in the year, beginning sometime in late July, I started having all kinds of powerful psychic/paranormal experiences; and these were clearly connected and related to that UFO I'd seen at Michael's house. That night had been in the later half of March. I was back again living at my Nana's and Mom's apartment on Cherokee Avenue. Kaye was back living at her Mom's house in Anaheim when these occurrences began.

(More to come...as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

July ~ November

My Mother Embarrasses the Hell Out of Me

During the late summer and autumn of 1967, a time when my mother-the-alcoholic was trying to be nice to me, she did something which I know she meant well, but it embarrassed and appalled me beyond words, to put it mildly. One night when I came home the first thing she said to me was, "Please don't hate me for this, but..." and she told me that she and her boyfriend, Jack, had gone to the Whiskey's, found Gene by the resemblance to the drawings and paintings I'd done of him, and invited themselves to sit with Gene at his booth. Then my mother told him "everything" about me, and my loving and being in-love with him, etc.; she said she had also told him about the beautiful portraits I'd done of him. And she even invited him to come over to our home! She told him my name (at that time "Diane Naylor"). The "Naylor" was the name of my first ex-husband, but I'd gone back to using my maiden name, Musser. Perhaps my mom wasn't aware of that, or was too drunk to remember. It was later, after my mom and Jack had left the Whiskey's that Kaye and I went into the club. I remember Gene kept staring at me, "following" me around the club and finding ways to stand, or, sit at the bar, next to me, very close, and he was observing me so intensely that even Kaye was surprised by it. Kaye kept "spying" for me and telling me how much attention Gene was giving me. I found myself feeling so good, beyond mere complimented, and I even initiated some conversation, first, with him rather than wait for him to make the first move. I also remember that Gene left the club alone that night.

However once I got home, feeling so good, my mother told me what she had done and said. She told me she had even written my name and address down and given it to Gene, who put it in his pants' front pocket. I was absolutely horrified! How could she do that to me without my consent? I would not ever have let her do such a thing! She had bought a six-pack of some gourmet beer for "when Gene came over", to our new downstairs apartment on Cherokee Avenue in the same building as we'd lived in since 1965. I was so distressed I stayed home the next night. I just knew that Gene was at the Whiskey's, no doubt waiting to see if I'd come in too. Our psychic-telepathic bond's abilities, along with those of communication, etc., had grown stronger to the point where we could, and did, "summon" each other. There were a lot of times or nights when we would both show up wearing the same clothes: sage green jeans, black turtlenecks, and brown corduroy jackets, the exact same style, except for the size. More than once we'd look at ourselves and then at each other in astonishment, and feeling a bit "silly" or bemused, we'd kind of smile; and sometimes we'd chuckle or cackle together. Anyway, this night was also the one that my mom had invited Gene to come over. I got as drunk as I could guzzling that entire six-pack of gourmet beer. I wanted to hide from Gene in my acute discomfort! Of course he didn't show up at our doorstep, but I saw him in his car drive by our place a few times during the night before I passed out. Our front door and living room windows as well as my bedroom's window looked out on Cherokee Ave. And this was where I saw Gene drive by. I slept well into the next day. I told Kaye all about this. Then she sympathized with what I must have gone through.

As I remember, when I went to the Whiskey's again, about a week later, Gene was nowhere in sight; he just wasn't there. As this state of affairs went on for at least a week and a half or more, I naturally personalized it all and had myself believing that Gene was staying away because he didn't want anything to do with me, or even see me; and I just "knew" it was because of what my mother had done. I was "sure" Gene must have thought that I had told my Mom to go and say all that stuff to him! I would switch back and forth between thinking the worst and its opposite. But if I'd put my mom up to approaching Gene like that, then why would I have gone into the Whiskey's with Kaye that same night after my mom had left, with my not appearing the least bit nervous or apprehensive?

(More to come...as I remember)

Hollywood/Los Angeles, California

The Year Nears Its Finale

November

I hadn't seen Gene around much since the Autumn holiday season. In those days everybody still used the Whiskey 'a Go Go for the main hang-out. I remember when one of the nights while the Chambers Brothers band played a three-day or a one week gig there. One night Kaye and I had taken Acid and were in the club. They played and sang one of their current big hit songs, Time Has Come, and since I was so high and stoned, I was blown away. I was also kind of "spooked out" with the lighting (deep red lights flashing) along with the intensity of their playing and singing. It was awesome and "scary" all at the same time. I loved it though. There was also a small place right across Sunset from the 'Whiskey's, at the corner of (What's-Its-Name) Street and Sunset Boulevard, where today, or at least the last time I was in Los Angeles, exists a gas station. In those days however there was a really cool little coffee house and wine and beer bar. That place was where a lot of wonderful things happened, and held many fond memories for Gene and I. The little coffee house and bar had become the other happening place as well as the Whiskey's for everybody in 1966 and in 1967 and then on into the very beginning of 1968, I think. I do not remember now if that cool little spot survived into the beginning and/or through to the spring of 1968 or not; but the Whiskey's was still the main hang out for all the bands and their friends. The end of 1967 was the beginning of some "bummer times" for me, as frustrating and disappointing things happened between Gene and I a lot, though not all the time. Some nights we did get together. There were also times he would not be anywhere to be found, which was very depressing for me. It never occurred to me, unless someone told me, that he was working in the recording studios or out on tours.

(More to come...as I remember)