In the book, “Dark Side of the Sixties Moon” the character of Myrika is a composite of two and a half women, Two German’s and an American, who have left their mark on my life. The first one is actually named Myrika (Pictured) and was one my live in girlfriends in Haight Ashbury. Olivia, who was a 15 years old runaway and also a character in the new book was the other live in.
Myrika was a tall blond Nordic type, 5’ 10” to my 5’ 6” and was 23 years old to my 17. who was a poet/writer and photographer. Very protective and provocative in her writings and her personality. She was a student at UC San Francisco, theater arts. She was supportive of me who at the time was a directionless high school dropout while she was aceing college We traveled a lot on the west coast and a few back east which I have used as the setting for a few chapters of “The Dark Side of the Sixties Moon including our trips to Death Valley and the commune in New Mexico.
One trip we went cross country in a Metropolitan with another couple, which if you don’t know what what a Metropolitan is, imagine sardines in a can. We made it to New York and back on fumes for gas. We sold enough acid and weed in the Haight to finance part of the trip, the other couple were from Seattle and the girl had rich parents so they picked up the slack. Thank gawd for the rich ones! Dave, was the guy’s name and my best friend in the Haight. He eventually ended up in Chino for selling drugs and got busted in L.A. on one of his forays down there. His girlfriend was Mary who was another 15 year old runaway girl. Hell all of the Haight was a haven for runaways….
Olivia is also a character in the “Dark Side” book as well...Olivia, as the pregnant underage girlfriend of Joey another character. She was not pregnant in real life until much later as an adult. I kept in touch for years and still have her love letters written in the Haight on the back of H/A postcards of the Pscyhe Shop. It may sound strange to share two women, in effect, they were sharing me so in this age of “ME TOO” believe me I have no complaints...use me abuse me was me motto. The other half of the Myrika character is Sibyll Kalff a German artist and musician who I met at an art gallery in New York where she was the featured artist. One thing led to another, this was post Myrika and Olivia by the way…..Myrika was sent back to Germany being long overdue when her Visa had expired by 6 months….that event is also in the new book…
Back to Sibyll...we collaborated on projects, my words, her art that she had published in German as Kalff-Marino Little Books. She also used some of my word rambles and put music to them with her band in Berlin, an industrial punk pop band, she was the bass player and engineer.
We were engaged at one point when she fell to schizophrenia and committed to a mental hospital in Munich by her parents when she traveled back there. We’d write every week and still made plans….she couldn’t leave Germany in her condition that gradually swallowed her whole...soon I was dealing with multiple personalities...but always Sibyll...she was a free spirit, we went on a few trips to the desert southwest when she was here... photographing and hiking and laughing...she called me the Blue Coyote as blue was her fave color and I’d howl like a coyote when on the trip...Hence the Blue Haiku project….I visited her in Berlin years ago..tons of photos I took will share
We resigned ourselves that we would never marry now...she was getting worse in the hospital. Although our plans to marry were many years ago both in our 30’s, she said I was always her Blue Coyote….last year I got word from her family….Sibyll died alone in her room......apparent overdose as life became too hard for her...I wrote as a tribute…”Night of the Berlin Schizophrenes”
So when you read the new book, these are the women who inspired the characters….life is funny at times and other times a real bitch…..Hooowwwwlllllll!
It certainly was a heady time that has shaped your life and writing.
I was there, but I was square. A struggling graduate engineering student at Stanford, I never passed up a drink, but I didn't smoke and didn't toke, even though it was around me from time to time. I shared, badly, a new two room apartment with three other Stanford grad students in Mountain View, but got to the City as often as I could; more to observe, than to participate.
My refuge was the huge pool. To swim, to sun, and try to read technical stuff from the lounge with some of the residents, many SFA stewardesses, sometimes around to distract except mid-day. One day, a beautiful bikinied dark-haired girl came down, smoking like a smokestack, nervously, until I struck up a conversation.
Geisla was born near Frankfurt, spent some time in Paris where she met her draft dodging husband, the son of an El Paso lawyer. Her English, with a strong French/German accent, was refreshing, and I was in love. Her husband sold tickets at the airport and studied art at Hayward. He was the one that told her to go to the pool because Geisla was lonely and homesick, even though she worked for a German travel agency on El Camino Real. He was quite liberal with her and I once heard him trying to swap with another couple at a party she held. After she had a baby, she told me that she was, "Going to divorce him and marry Ron," while talking to the baby. I have a picture of her I can share.
A year later, I was working in a plant with little money and a tech offered to drive me to the East Coast and back during our summer shutdown. We spent two weeks going to Expo 67 in Montréal and relatives in several states, sleeping only in their places and on the ground with no motel money. I remember telling my grandmother to ditch her big 1939 Buick for a Metropolitan. Nick's 1960 Austin Healey Sprite was an even smaller substitute. We ended up having to replace much of the hydraulic clutch and the entire top, spending the return trip without one, wind and sun burn with drives as long as 22 hours averaging only 50 mph.
But it was fun and great to be alive in those days.
Action-packed adventure that will keep you turning the pages.
When an explosion on board Transcon's flight Three-Seven disables their flight control systems, it's up to a group of "Angels" to save the passengers and crew from crashing into
This was no mere illusion. Colin Chase Rand, pulled through a magical portal, landed in 1935 where the dust bowl and the Great Depression was destroying lives, and a serial killer was in their midst
Let yourself take on a sexy adventurous read, walk on the sensual dark side of human adventure through the shadows of your mind. And, challenge your senses of the normal versus the paranormal, and the abnormal. Accept the quest, get onboard and disco
