Tape 6, Side B
[Begin Tape 6, Side B]
Okay, so yeah… I’m on the bus; I’ve got a hundred bucks in my pocket; going to Manhattan Beach. So I get off the bus at the L.A. bus terminal, downtown L.A. bus terminal, and I don’t know what to expect. I’m looking around and this young man singles me out. I know I’m supposed to meet--I know it’s Bob is gonna pick me up.
And you say Bob lived down in the same area?
He lives in the same area, yeah. He, you know, we sort of eye one another up and figure it out, ‘cause he didn’t really know what I looked like and I certainly didn’t remember what he looked like. But there it is, and he loads me into this car and we drive to his place, which is in North Manhattan Beach, an area called El Porto. And ah… I’m in Southern California, man! [laughter]
Do you have any impressions of Southern California?
The first impression I have is just, you know, there was the long drive from the airport [sic] and then at some point we rise over a ridge and wham! there’s the Pacific ocean. I don’t remember what time of year it was but it was all blue and sparkling and sunny and I thought this was a good thing. I was tired of that other scene anyway [laughter], so I was happy, I was happy to be doing this thing.
To just have the change, the moving…?
Yeah, plus it meant I guess on some level another step away from being controlled. I knew I had to watch my step because I was a little older now and that I was a little more vulnerable, you know, I didn’t have a home really, you know, I didn’t have a home with my family or a home in the institution, but if these guys were going to take care of me in some way I didn’t know exactly how that was going to play out, but they weren’t my parents and they weren’t that much older than I was, so…
So you had a sense maybe: If this doesn’t work out you didn’t know, so you were going to try…?
I had no idea, yeah, so I was going to try to play along with it as best I could, but I realized that also I needed to keep certain things to myself, and I started developing a really secretive protective streak then, because I didn’t, I just didn’t want to...
That’s interesting. Why?
I don’t know, I just didn’t want to reveal myself, reveal… you know ‘cause I guess apparently I’m thinking that I had, you know, a bad streak, so I wanted to be good and I wanted to make them think that I was good and that I was playing along [laughs].
You felt that you had a bad streak, that you were sort of a bad seed or what?
No, not exactly, it’s just that I had, you know, like ah… proclivities. I had antisocial proclivities, you know, that sort of thing. Uncon… you know, what’s that word they used to say in the fifties, ah, not unconventional… nonconformist. That was a big slam in the fifties: nonconformist. ‘Cause I knew that some things I was interested in not everybody was, and, you know, some of it was probably weird, and I didn’t know how these guys were yet, so it took a while before I really relaxed.
Did you remember much about them? Was it Bob who had been in Korea?
No, that was Gene, my older… Bob, see, Bob, again, Bob was there.
How old was Bob?
I’m picturing twenty-six, not yet thirty maybe. He was still going to college; he was going to UCLA, and working on the side. He was there when I was growing up, but I don’t remember him except isolated instances, like at the dinner table or that thing that I was telling you where apparently he knew some sign language, but he was there a lot and I just don’t remember, just a shadowy in the… but that’s, you know, I don’t remember lots of stuff. I don’t remember my younger brother and sister and they were there too. But he apparently was there sometimes and sometimes he wasn’t there, so I don’t know. I don’t know what the deal was. And Gene, the only thing I remember from him was that after the post-Korean War stuff where he was living with us and he had a wife. He got married very shortly after. He had a convertible. I would go on rides with him, and, you know, he had those jazz records.
But now this is what you remembered from earlier.
I had no idea they existed or where they were or anything like that, but my father apparently had kept in touch with them all along.
Were you staying at Bob’s or Gene’s?
The first, we went to Bob’s first, and this is ah… I mean it just increased my happiness and my interest in this whole deal. Bob was living in one of the last of the Southern California beach shacks that existed--they tore a lot of them down, they were replaced by—but, you know, it had a thatched roof…
Right on the beach?
No, it wasn’t on the beach. It was up from the beach, in fact it was on a hill, but it was a beach shack.
So it was a style of house or shack…?
It was pretty big for a shack.
…that was actually kind of common then?
I guess so. That’s what they were saying. They called it the Villa Leana because it was so… it leaned onto the street [laughs], you know, it was like… It had a main floor and a sleeping loft and then you’d go out the back door and it had a huge patio because they lived most of their lives outside, those beach people.
And this sounds like it would have been pretty cool, for a kid.
It was pretty cool. I wasn’t living there but this is where Bob lived and Gene and his wife had lived there before him, so this was sort of, you know, Bob inherited this, and he had a roommate I believe was a roommate or friend, I don’t know, but it was, I think it was Gordon Jenkins, Junior, Gordon Jenkins the arranger, Gordo, yeah, that’s what they called him, and he had a cute little dog. And so I fell into that place and we were gonna wait there until Gene came home, were gonna go over to Gene’s. And we went out on the patio; he dragged out the hibachi; cooked up some steaks. I thought I’d done died and went to heaven! [laughter]
Sounds great.
Yeah, and he was very nice, friendly, we were talking to each other, he was asking me stuff and I thought it was pretty good. You know, again, it was all sun shining, the air was cool and everything was melody and fine, and the steaks were cookin’, yeah. And then we went over to Gene’s either that same day or thereafter, and I…
Were Gene and Bob close?
Well at that time they were, yeah, they were. Bob was going, you know the picture of Bob is I guess that he was going to UCLA and, I think, again, the memory fails you, and I guess he was studying accountancy because he became a CPA and at that time he was also working at a shoe store, because I went to hang out with him at work a couple times, so he was always on the move: get up early, get to work, go to school and then spend some time there at the Villa Leana. So we went over to Gene’s place, and I don’t exactly know if it was all finished at this point, but what they had done, what Gene had done with Bob’s help I guess was they had a garage, and they subdivided it right down in half, in the middle, and they gave me half the garage, and they got this huge door or something like that, or maybe it was just a big piece of wood, but they fit that into one section of the garage and that was like my desk; it was this monstrous wide tabletop. That was my desk, and I had a bed and there was some kind of heater.
And they did this all for you?
Yeah, ‘cause he didn’t have any room in his house. He had a nice house there in Manhattan Beach, it was like upstairs and downstairs, but there was no extra room. And then there was a big backyard. They don’t have much front-yards there, basically just ice plant, but a big backyard with barbecue stuff, then out there was a garage, so I was in half of the garage.
They had put together a pretty good setup it sounds like.
It was pretty good, yeah, it was great.
You had a little bit of privacy.
There was no bathroom there. I had to go inside to take a bath or to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I didn’t actually make it inside, but that was only at night [laughter]; didn’t want to disturb anybody, you know. But yeah, it was quite a deal. I not only had my own little room, I had my own little house, more or less, and separate entrance; I could come and go pretty much as I pleased; and they never checked up on me, except one time, I’m gonna tell you a story about that when we get in there.
Sounds notable.
And, you know, I was setup there. I gave Gene my hundred dollars. I helped them build a little patio too. That was very interesting because they were buddy-buddy, Bob and Gene, they were. They were building a brick patio; they were putting bricks into the sand, so I got to watch how all that was done—that came in handy later—and level the sand, put the bricks in, hammer it down, pour some water on, knock the other bricks in there…but that took a long time and they worked together and they were letting me help them so I got to experience their banter back and forth and there was music on the radio and it must have been summertime or it was some sunny time, but it was just like paradise, and I had my own little place and they fed me and…
Did they take a parental tone with you or almost more like a sibling, which of course is what they were?
Well that’s when differences started to developed a little bit. I could see differences between them on that score. Gene was pretty hands-off, and his wife, Tanya.
What was his wife like?
They were both young, cool, hip, groovy, swingin’, funny, smart people. Yeah. They dug each other and they had people over all the time and--I guess she wasn’t working then, I don’t think so but I’m not exactly sure--and they had a baby so every now and then I’d take care of the baby.
The baby was how old do you think?
One or two, something like that. I don’t remember too much about that baby [laughs].
You were saying something about the differences between Bob and Gene.
Gene was pretty hands-off, he was happy to let me just figure things out, for the most part. He had a philosophy of life and he wanted me to understand that that was the best way to live [laughs], you know, to follow that philosophy.
Was the philosophy clear, I mean could you state what it was?
It was: Open your eyes. Be cool—‘cause he was very cool. Find out what you really dig and do that, and watch other people too, see what other people do, see if there’s anything there that you can learn from. What he used to say was, okay, something like: So you can dig that cat there and see what he does, and you take from that, or you can dig that cat over there and see what he does and take from that, you know, and make it your own. So that was how… but there was a certain amount of… You know you couldn’t really trust everybody, and I knew that already [laughs].
So that was part of his philosophy?
That was part of it. And he always used to set up these little, I’d get these little lessons… He was very into object lessons; like he was telling me once something he had about girls, what was that deal? He would give a girl twenty bucks and tell her to keep it for him, and then a few months later he’d ask her about it, and if she’d spent it that would tell him something, and if she hadn’t, if she had it right in her pocket and could hand it to him, that would tell him something else. And I got the impression that you would fall one way or the other depending on… so it was a kind of moralistic…
So he’d sort of test people?
Yeah.
Were there things about the philosophy… you say he kind of imposed it?
No, he never really did. I mean it worked for him. He survived his captivity in the Korean War, and his tuberculosis, and his first marriage maybe, and, you know, he was a survivor.
This was his second marriage?
Yeah, this was his second marriage. He had a son from his first marriage that I didn’t really know about. I don’t know. I didn’t know anything about them.
Did they live nearby?
I don’t know. I don’t know anything about them. I mean they’re still around. I find out now that he still sees him or is in touch with him in some way, so… but at that time I didn’t know, I didn’t really know this. And I sort of, like I say, I remembered he had another wife, didn’t look the same as this wife [laughs], but I didn’t know how those things worked at all, so this was a whole new deal as far as I knew. I don’t know what happened with the old deal and I wasn’t curious about it I guess. I wasn’t very curious about how other people worked things out; that’s why I couldn’t really go along with that part of his philosophy about, you know: Look at other people and see what they do… I mean I didn’t care what other people did! [laughter] As far as I was concerned people were motivated, at that time I thought that people were just, it was all just totally random, and I had no understanding or comprehension or desire to comprehend how and why other people behaved the way they did. The whole thing seemed totally random, and I wasn’t looking for any rationale behind it. I was just trying to adapt I think. Here was another situation, the sixth or seventh different situation that I had to adapt to, and by then I was getting good at it, really good, plus it was really nice to have my own physical environment. That made it a little easier to hide things and to be good, to not have to. I spent a lot of time there just reading, doing things and whatever, smoking, that they didn’t know about.
So those sorts of things you didn’t really talk about, I mean what you were reading or what you were…?
No, no, not really, I mean sort of, as I got to be a little more relaxed around Gene especially, a little more of that came out because you know he was very cool and he was into... he was an advertising executive at that time, yeah, working for BVD & O or somebody, I don’t know; he had a long commute going into Los Angeles and I think he was doing that. He was involved in the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Manhattan Beach and he even ran for some JC office. His name was Gene Scott and his slogan was: It’s Scott to be good! [laughter] And his theme music was… yeah, that’s right, he went around with a, was it a car? or was it a stationary, you know one of those cars that go up and down the street? I don’t think so, maybe it was just a stationary tape recorder, but it was ‘Take Five’ was in the background and he was doing some little voice-over about why you should vote for Gene Scott.
So there was always kind of a hip… This is interesting. I guess I didn’t picture him as an advertising executive…
That was his gig.
…or running for office or anything like that. Was there still the sort of doper quality and all that?
Well I didn’t know anything about that at that time. I was just starting to be… at that time, until I left his employ [laughs], until I left his place I didn’t know anything about that. It didn’t really come up, I mean I didn’t even know about such things, although I probably read about them because I was reading, you know I started reading much, much wider than I ever had.
Where were you getting books?
Well I was getting magazines from magazine stores. Oh: Playboy. He had Playboys, Gene did, number one, he had from the very beginning and is still a current subscriber.
What year?
Playboy started like in 1956, so it had been in existence for like seven years now, and he had them all, stacks and stacks. He didn’t care, and I knew where they were, and he didn’t really encourage me to read them, but I knew where they were, and he didn’t prevent me from reading them. Like I say, he was real hands-off on that score.
How old were you at this time?
Fourteen, fifteen, something like that.
So had you discovered one-handed reading technique?
[laughing] We’re not gonna get into that. We’re not gonna get into that stuff at all.
[laughing] Well it was a good try anyway.
Yes, ah, [Bill Clinton Arkansas accent:] well it depends on what you mean by the word ‘is’. [Looking through some papers.]
Looking for the chronology?
Yes. So I was sixteen, getting to be about sixteen, something like that there. Well I certainly was interested in them pictures, but I did read them cover to cover. You know they had all those great interviews: interviews with Malcolm X, interviews with Lenny Bruce—in fact Lenny Bruce had that series in Playboy at that time I think, which was the serialized, his autobiography sort of. What was the name of that?
Yeah, that’s right, because they published that. How to Win Friends and… Oh what was it? Something like that… It was a play on How to Win Friends and Influence People.*
And they were serializing the awful, awful Playboy Philosophy, by Hugh Hefner himself. Phew… I read that too though, but they had a lot of contemporary stuff, a lot of stuff about gadgets and clothes: I read it all. It pointed you to other books and magazines and things like that, so I was looking for stuff in the library basically. I wasn’t into buying books yet although it wasn’t too far thereafter that I was; I started buying books, but not while I was there.
So you would buy magazines though?
Buy mags, yeah.
And you had a library card?
Yeah. And then I discovered… Oh, back to the differences between Bob and Gene. I thought Bob was a little more—I don’t know how to describe it—maybe a little more straight. He was cool too. He liked jazz, you know, and he lived in that cool place, but he was interested in getting his degree and getting out and getting into the world, and I think he wanted to see me do something good with my life, you know, to live up to my potential. I started dividing people into those who think I’m not living up to my potential and everybody else, so he fell on that side where you’re supposed to, you’re smart, you’re fast, you can do something, you can do this, so he was interested in my development and that’s where Gene, Gene really wasn’t [laughs], and that was cool. I liked that. I liked that part of it. You know he wanted me to maintain. He wanted me to be good in school and stay in school, but he wasn’t putting any moves on me.
Did you prefer Gene’s attitude to Bob’s?
Well I don’t think Bob’s attitude was that sharply defined at that time to me, so I think there was some talk sometimes of my living with Bob, but no, I liked it where I was. Yeah, I definitely liked it, because when I came into the house they had the music going. They had the television. The television was in there so I had to go in there and watch. They ate well [laughs]. They ate really cool stuff like salads. Wow, what a concept, with the fresh greens and the salad dressing, the Italian dressing, whoa, never knew about that before. The Italian dressing, whoa.
What was it before? Thousand island?
Yeah, something gloppy like that, or the french dressing, euw, that stuff that looks like milk of magnesia.
So it was the good life.
It was really good, and I got to learn. They were always doing things; they were doing things to their house, fixing it up, so I got to go to the hardware stores and buy lumber and help with a lot of that stuff, and that was really neat.
Were you getting pretty handy, learning how to do that stuff?
It turns out later on, a lot of the stuff that I have to do now in my own house, I learned a little bit. I made a patio, just like they did, and it all comes back to ya.
So you kept your eyes open?
Yeah, I kept my eyes open, and not on purpose. I mean I didn’t have to work to do it, I was just… that’s what it was, it was all absorbing and interesting and I became interested in all this stuff, and again, I was trying to be good. And I got a job; I got a part-time job at a drugstore, Guild Drugstore, and so I was able to give them some money, ‘cause I knew they didn’t have a lot of money, yet they took this other person in.
Was your father…? You gave them the hundred dollars your father had given you. Were those his instructions?
[laughing] Yeah, yeah, as far as I was concerned, that was it: Here Gene, for the rest of my life with you, this’ll cover it. So Gene, from time to time I could tell that he wanted me to kick in.
So you just read the signs. It’s time to put in.
Yeah. I think so. He may have said something
It sounds though like your father never sent him another penny?
I don’t know. It’s possible that he did. I don’t know.
But that was between Gene and your father.
Yeah, you know, really when I started on that stage in my life I didn’t give him another thought for many, many, many years. It was like a big… In fact I kind of Xed him out you know.
Were you mad?
I don’t think so, no I don’t think I was mad, I just, I just, you know, he just dropped off the edge of the earth. In fact I remember when I thought of him, when I tried to picture him there was a big X over his face [laughter]. It’s those Xs again.
Just like your ether experience.
Just like my ether experience; and my number in the Catholic home was X9. So he was just Xed out. He didn’t have anything to do with me. Same thing for my brother and sister.
You’d achieved a certain kind of indifference toward him?
Yep, and to whatever I was before that. It didn’t make… I guess I was into the: ‘Well let’s start something new’ deal, you know. Trash the old. Let’s move on with the old, ‘cause, like I say, I didn’t give my brother and sister another thought either; I mean I was aware on some level that I had a brother and sister, but I don’t recall that we ever talked about them with Gene or Bob.
Did they call on the phone, or send letters?
No, I don’t think so.
Nothing.
Nothing. It just didn’t pertain.
Yeah, and you had said you didn’t really bond up right.
Yeah, I guess we didn’t really bond up right and I still wasn’t at the point where I was able to think things through. Paying attention and thinking things through, not my strong suits [laughter].
We’re going to have to put in another tape.
Okay.
[End Tape 6, Side B]
Okay, so yeah… I’m on the bus; I’ve got a hundred bucks in my pocket; going to Manhattan Beach. So I get off the bus at the L.A. bus terminal, downtown L.A. bus terminal, and I don’t know what to expect. I’m looking around and this young man singles me out. I know I’m supposed to meet--I know it’s Bob is gonna pick me up.
And you say Bob lived down in the same area?
He lives in the same area, yeah. He, you know, we sort of eye one another up and figure it out, ‘cause he didn’t really know what I looked like and I certainly didn’t remember what he looked like. But there it is, and he loads me into this car and we drive to his place, which is in North Manhattan Beach, an area called El Porto. And ah… I’m in Southern California, man! [laughter]
Do you have any impressions of Southern California?
The first impression I have is just, you know, there was the long drive from the airport [sic] and then at some point we rise over a ridge and wham! there’s the Pacific ocean. I don’t remember what time of year it was but it was all blue and sparkling and sunny and I thought this was a good thing. I was tired of that other scene anyway [laughter], so I was happy, I was happy to be doing this thing.
To just have the change, the moving…?
Yeah, plus it meant I guess on some level another step away from being controlled. I knew I had to watch my step because I was a little older now and that I was a little more vulnerable, you know, I didn’t have a home really, you know, I didn’t have a home with my family or a home in the institution, but if these guys were going to take care of me in some way I didn’t know exactly how that was going to play out, but they weren’t my parents and they weren’t that much older than I was, so…
So you had a sense maybe: If this doesn’t work out you didn’t know, so you were going to try…?
I had no idea, yeah, so I was going to try to play along with it as best I could, but I realized that also I needed to keep certain things to myself, and I started developing a really secretive protective streak then, because I didn’t, I just didn’t want to...
That’s interesting. Why?
I don’t know, I just didn’t want to reveal myself, reveal… you know ‘cause I guess apparently I’m thinking that I had, you know, a bad streak, so I wanted to be good and I wanted to make them think that I was good and that I was playing along [laughs].
You felt that you had a bad streak, that you were sort of a bad seed or what?
No, not exactly, it’s just that I had, you know, like ah… proclivities. I had antisocial proclivities, you know, that sort of thing. Uncon… you know, what’s that word they used to say in the fifties, ah, not unconventional… nonconformist. That was a big slam in the fifties: nonconformist. ‘Cause I knew that some things I was interested in not everybody was, and, you know, some of it was probably weird, and I didn’t know how these guys were yet, so it took a while before I really relaxed.
Did you remember much about them? Was it Bob who had been in Korea?
No, that was Gene, my older… Bob, see, Bob, again, Bob was there.
How old was Bob?
I’m picturing twenty-six, not yet thirty maybe. He was still going to college; he was going to UCLA, and working on the side. He was there when I was growing up, but I don’t remember him except isolated instances, like at the dinner table or that thing that I was telling you where apparently he knew some sign language, but he was there a lot and I just don’t remember, just a shadowy in the… but that’s, you know, I don’t remember lots of stuff. I don’t remember my younger brother and sister and they were there too. But he apparently was there sometimes and sometimes he wasn’t there, so I don’t know. I don’t know what the deal was. And Gene, the only thing I remember from him was that after the post-Korean War stuff where he was living with us and he had a wife. He got married very shortly after. He had a convertible. I would go on rides with him, and, you know, he had those jazz records.
But now this is what you remembered from earlier.
I had no idea they existed or where they were or anything like that, but my father apparently had kept in touch with them all along.
Were you staying at Bob’s or Gene’s?
The first, we went to Bob’s first, and this is ah… I mean it just increased my happiness and my interest in this whole deal. Bob was living in one of the last of the Southern California beach shacks that existed--they tore a lot of them down, they were replaced by—but, you know, it had a thatched roof…
Right on the beach?
No, it wasn’t on the beach. It was up from the beach, in fact it was on a hill, but it was a beach shack.
So it was a style of house or shack…?
It was pretty big for a shack.
…that was actually kind of common then?
I guess so. That’s what they were saying. They called it the Villa Leana because it was so… it leaned onto the street [laughs], you know, it was like… It had a main floor and a sleeping loft and then you’d go out the back door and it had a huge patio because they lived most of their lives outside, those beach people.
And this sounds like it would have been pretty cool, for a kid.
It was pretty cool. I wasn’t living there but this is where Bob lived and Gene and his wife had lived there before him, so this was sort of, you know, Bob inherited this, and he had a roommate I believe was a roommate or friend, I don’t know, but it was, I think it was Gordon Jenkins, Junior, Gordon Jenkins the arranger, Gordo, yeah, that’s what they called him, and he had a cute little dog. And so I fell into that place and we were gonna wait there until Gene came home, were gonna go over to Gene’s. And we went out on the patio; he dragged out the hibachi; cooked up some steaks. I thought I’d done died and went to heaven! [laughter]
Sounds great.
Yeah, and he was very nice, friendly, we were talking to each other, he was asking me stuff and I thought it was pretty good. You know, again, it was all sun shining, the air was cool and everything was melody and fine, and the steaks were cookin’, yeah. And then we went over to Gene’s either that same day or thereafter, and I…
Were Gene and Bob close?
Well at that time they were, yeah, they were. Bob was going, you know the picture of Bob is I guess that he was going to UCLA and, I think, again, the memory fails you, and I guess he was studying accountancy because he became a CPA and at that time he was also working at a shoe store, because I went to hang out with him at work a couple times, so he was always on the move: get up early, get to work, go to school and then spend some time there at the Villa Leana. So we went over to Gene’s place, and I don’t exactly know if it was all finished at this point, but what they had done, what Gene had done with Bob’s help I guess was they had a garage, and they subdivided it right down in half, in the middle, and they gave me half the garage, and they got this huge door or something like that, or maybe it was just a big piece of wood, but they fit that into one section of the garage and that was like my desk; it was this monstrous wide tabletop. That was my desk, and I had a bed and there was some kind of heater.
And they did this all for you?
Yeah, ‘cause he didn’t have any room in his house. He had a nice house there in Manhattan Beach, it was like upstairs and downstairs, but there was no extra room. And then there was a big backyard. They don’t have much front-yards there, basically just ice plant, but a big backyard with barbecue stuff, then out there was a garage, so I was in half of the garage.
They had put together a pretty good setup it sounds like.
It was pretty good, yeah, it was great.
You had a little bit of privacy.
There was no bathroom there. I had to go inside to take a bath or to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I didn’t actually make it inside, but that was only at night [laughter]; didn’t want to disturb anybody, you know. But yeah, it was quite a deal. I not only had my own little room, I had my own little house, more or less, and separate entrance; I could come and go pretty much as I pleased; and they never checked up on me, except one time, I’m gonna tell you a story about that when we get in there.
Sounds notable.
And, you know, I was setup there. I gave Gene my hundred dollars. I helped them build a little patio too. That was very interesting because they were buddy-buddy, Bob and Gene, they were. They were building a brick patio; they were putting bricks into the sand, so I got to watch how all that was done—that came in handy later—and level the sand, put the bricks in, hammer it down, pour some water on, knock the other bricks in there…but that took a long time and they worked together and they were letting me help them so I got to experience their banter back and forth and there was music on the radio and it must have been summertime or it was some sunny time, but it was just like paradise, and I had my own little place and they fed me and…
Did they take a parental tone with you or almost more like a sibling, which of course is what they were?
Well that’s when differences started to developed a little bit. I could see differences between them on that score. Gene was pretty hands-off, and his wife, Tanya.
What was his wife like?
They were both young, cool, hip, groovy, swingin’, funny, smart people. Yeah. They dug each other and they had people over all the time and--I guess she wasn’t working then, I don’t think so but I’m not exactly sure--and they had a baby so every now and then I’d take care of the baby.
The baby was how old do you think?
One or two, something like that. I don’t remember too much about that baby [laughs].
You were saying something about the differences between Bob and Gene.
Gene was pretty hands-off, he was happy to let me just figure things out, for the most part. He had a philosophy of life and he wanted me to understand that that was the best way to live [laughs], you know, to follow that philosophy.
Was the philosophy clear, I mean could you state what it was?
It was: Open your eyes. Be cool—‘cause he was very cool. Find out what you really dig and do that, and watch other people too, see what other people do, see if there’s anything there that you can learn from. What he used to say was, okay, something like: So you can dig that cat there and see what he does, and you take from that, or you can dig that cat over there and see what he does and take from that, you know, and make it your own. So that was how… but there was a certain amount of… You know you couldn’t really trust everybody, and I knew that already [laughs].
So that was part of his philosophy?
That was part of it. And he always used to set up these little, I’d get these little lessons… He was very into object lessons; like he was telling me once something he had about girls, what was that deal? He would give a girl twenty bucks and tell her to keep it for him, and then a few months later he’d ask her about it, and if she’d spent it that would tell him something, and if she hadn’t, if she had it right in her pocket and could hand it to him, that would tell him something else. And I got the impression that you would fall one way or the other depending on… so it was a kind of moralistic…
So he’d sort of test people?
Yeah.
Were there things about the philosophy… you say he kind of imposed it?
No, he never really did. I mean it worked for him. He survived his captivity in the Korean War, and his tuberculosis, and his first marriage maybe, and, you know, he was a survivor.
This was his second marriage?
Yeah, this was his second marriage. He had a son from his first marriage that I didn’t really know about. I don’t know. I didn’t know anything about them.
Did they live nearby?
I don’t know. I don’t know anything about them. I mean they’re still around. I find out now that he still sees him or is in touch with him in some way, so… but at that time I didn’t know, I didn’t really know this. And I sort of, like I say, I remembered he had another wife, didn’t look the same as this wife [laughs], but I didn’t know how those things worked at all, so this was a whole new deal as far as I knew. I don’t know what happened with the old deal and I wasn’t curious about it I guess. I wasn’t very curious about how other people worked things out; that’s why I couldn’t really go along with that part of his philosophy about, you know: Look at other people and see what they do… I mean I didn’t care what other people did! [laughter] As far as I was concerned people were motivated, at that time I thought that people were just, it was all just totally random, and I had no understanding or comprehension or desire to comprehend how and why other people behaved the way they did. The whole thing seemed totally random, and I wasn’t looking for any rationale behind it. I was just trying to adapt I think. Here was another situation, the sixth or seventh different situation that I had to adapt to, and by then I was getting good at it, really good, plus it was really nice to have my own physical environment. That made it a little easier to hide things and to be good, to not have to. I spent a lot of time there just reading, doing things and whatever, smoking, that they didn’t know about.
So those sorts of things you didn’t really talk about, I mean what you were reading or what you were…?
No, no, not really, I mean sort of, as I got to be a little more relaxed around Gene especially, a little more of that came out because you know he was very cool and he was into... he was an advertising executive at that time, yeah, working for BVD & O or somebody, I don’t know; he had a long commute going into Los Angeles and I think he was doing that. He was involved in the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Manhattan Beach and he even ran for some JC office. His name was Gene Scott and his slogan was: It’s Scott to be good! [laughter] And his theme music was… yeah, that’s right, he went around with a, was it a car? or was it a stationary, you know one of those cars that go up and down the street? I don’t think so, maybe it was just a stationary tape recorder, but it was ‘Take Five’ was in the background and he was doing some little voice-over about why you should vote for Gene Scott.
So there was always kind of a hip… This is interesting. I guess I didn’t picture him as an advertising executive…
That was his gig.
…or running for office or anything like that. Was there still the sort of doper quality and all that?
Well I didn’t know anything about that at that time. I was just starting to be… at that time, until I left his employ [laughs], until I left his place I didn’t know anything about that. It didn’t really come up, I mean I didn’t even know about such things, although I probably read about them because I was reading, you know I started reading much, much wider than I ever had.
Where were you getting books?
Well I was getting magazines from magazine stores. Oh: Playboy. He had Playboys, Gene did, number one, he had from the very beginning and is still a current subscriber.
What year?
Playboy started like in 1956, so it had been in existence for like seven years now, and he had them all, stacks and stacks. He didn’t care, and I knew where they were, and he didn’t really encourage me to read them, but I knew where they were, and he didn’t prevent me from reading them. Like I say, he was real hands-off on that score.
How old were you at this time?
Fourteen, fifteen, something like that.
So had you discovered one-handed reading technique?
[laughing] We’re not gonna get into that. We’re not gonna get into that stuff at all.
[laughing] Well it was a good try anyway.
Yes, ah, [Bill Clinton Arkansas accent:] well it depends on what you mean by the word ‘is’. [Looking through some papers.]
Looking for the chronology?
Yes. So I was sixteen, getting to be about sixteen, something like that there. Well I certainly was interested in them pictures, but I did read them cover to cover. You know they had all those great interviews: interviews with Malcolm X, interviews with Lenny Bruce—in fact Lenny Bruce had that series in Playboy at that time I think, which was the serialized, his autobiography sort of. What was the name of that?
Yeah, that’s right, because they published that. How to Win Friends and… Oh what was it? Something like that… It was a play on How to Win Friends and Influence People.*
And they were serializing the awful, awful Playboy Philosophy, by Hugh Hefner himself. Phew… I read that too though, but they had a lot of contemporary stuff, a lot of stuff about gadgets and clothes: I read it all. It pointed you to other books and magazines and things like that, so I was looking for stuff in the library basically. I wasn’t into buying books yet although it wasn’t too far thereafter that I was; I started buying books, but not while I was there.
So you would buy magazines though?
Buy mags, yeah.
And you had a library card?
Yeah. And then I discovered… Oh, back to the differences between Bob and Gene. I thought Bob was a little more—I don’t know how to describe it—maybe a little more straight. He was cool too. He liked jazz, you know, and he lived in that cool place, but he was interested in getting his degree and getting out and getting into the world, and I think he wanted to see me do something good with my life, you know, to live up to my potential. I started dividing people into those who think I’m not living up to my potential and everybody else, so he fell on that side where you’re supposed to, you’re smart, you’re fast, you can do something, you can do this, so he was interested in my development and that’s where Gene, Gene really wasn’t [laughs], and that was cool. I liked that. I liked that part of it. You know he wanted me to maintain. He wanted me to be good in school and stay in school, but he wasn’t putting any moves on me.
Did you prefer Gene’s attitude to Bob’s?
Well I don’t think Bob’s attitude was that sharply defined at that time to me, so I think there was some talk sometimes of my living with Bob, but no, I liked it where I was. Yeah, I definitely liked it, because when I came into the house they had the music going. They had the television. The television was in there so I had to go in there and watch. They ate well [laughs]. They ate really cool stuff like salads. Wow, what a concept, with the fresh greens and the salad dressing, the Italian dressing, whoa, never knew about that before. The Italian dressing, whoa.
What was it before? Thousand island?
Yeah, something gloppy like that, or the french dressing, euw, that stuff that looks like milk of magnesia.
So it was the good life.
It was really good, and I got to learn. They were always doing things; they were doing things to their house, fixing it up, so I got to go to the hardware stores and buy lumber and help with a lot of that stuff, and that was really neat.
Were you getting pretty handy, learning how to do that stuff?
It turns out later on, a lot of the stuff that I have to do now in my own house, I learned a little bit. I made a patio, just like they did, and it all comes back to ya.
So you kept your eyes open?
Yeah, I kept my eyes open, and not on purpose. I mean I didn’t have to work to do it, I was just… that’s what it was, it was all absorbing and interesting and I became interested in all this stuff, and again, I was trying to be good. And I got a job; I got a part-time job at a drugstore, Guild Drugstore, and so I was able to give them some money, ‘cause I knew they didn’t have a lot of money, yet they took this other person in.
Was your father…? You gave them the hundred dollars your father had given you. Were those his instructions?
[laughing] Yeah, yeah, as far as I was concerned, that was it: Here Gene, for the rest of my life with you, this’ll cover it. So Gene, from time to time I could tell that he wanted me to kick in.
So you just read the signs. It’s time to put in.
Yeah. I think so. He may have said something
It sounds though like your father never sent him another penny?
I don’t know. It’s possible that he did. I don’t know.
But that was between Gene and your father.
Yeah, you know, really when I started on that stage in my life I didn’t give him another thought for many, many, many years. It was like a big… In fact I kind of Xed him out you know.
Were you mad?
I don’t think so, no I don’t think I was mad, I just, I just, you know, he just dropped off the edge of the earth. In fact I remember when I thought of him, when I tried to picture him there was a big X over his face [laughter]. It’s those Xs again.
Just like your ether experience.
Just like my ether experience; and my number in the Catholic home was X9. So he was just Xed out. He didn’t have anything to do with me. Same thing for my brother and sister.
You’d achieved a certain kind of indifference toward him?
Yep, and to whatever I was before that. It didn’t make… I guess I was into the: ‘Well let’s start something new’ deal, you know. Trash the old. Let’s move on with the old, ‘cause, like I say, I didn’t give my brother and sister another thought either; I mean I was aware on some level that I had a brother and sister, but I don’t recall that we ever talked about them with Gene or Bob.
Did they call on the phone, or send letters?
No, I don’t think so.
Nothing.
Nothing. It just didn’t pertain.
Yeah, and you had said you didn’t really bond up right.
Yeah, I guess we didn’t really bond up right and I still wasn’t at the point where I was able to think things through. Paying attention and thinking things through, not my strong suits [laughter].
We’re going to have to put in another tape.
Okay.
[End Tape 6, Side B]
posted by epikles at 4:31 PM
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