Lone Pine, The party..part 2

Oh, gowd. I guess in order to put the party into perspective, I have to mention The Hog Farm. Yeah, not that one, but, named after it. Google it. Anyhow, The Hog Farm boys were the in crowd at the time. Real pains in the ass. I never went to bars and I only knew the local bands because my roomie, Shirl would bring them all home. They jammed, we partied. The Hog Farm was a bunch of pseudo intellectual fake hippies who's rich daddies had bought them this ridiculous ugly house in the country so they could have giant parties and not get sent to prison. They were rich boys, they dressed in "in" (fake) clothes and they had the best drugs, the latest albums, the fanciest cars..you name it. They were not real hippies and they meant nothing to me and I would never have slept with any of them, even though it WAS the 70's. Because they always thought they were better than me and smarter than me. I mean none of them could sing, play guitar, paint or anything else creative. Who the fuck dreams of being a rock "promoter"? Lame rich boys posing, that's who. And they had the nerve to want to fuck us, but, think they were better than us? I don't think so. A couple of them had fucked Shirl over real bad in the past and still pretended they were her friends. I knew better. But, I did admire how they were always the first to know what was happening everywhere. It was like they had informants all over the world. Racial skirmish in LA? Boom..they knew it and were discussing it in their phony intellectual circles before the news came on. Latest men's hippie fashion in London? They had it on, wearing it to the bar before it hit Vogue. Not that I even got to buy Vogue, but, you get the picture. They were pretty too, all of them. There is something to be said for a beautiful long haired man, you know there is. You couldn't help looking at them and all the chicks wanted a piece of that action. Because then, they'd be in with the in crowd. I thought they were annoying, I knew them only through the party hub and anyone who partied eventually made it out to our place, Lone Pine. We were "those two chicks." It became notorious. Like a secret night club you have to be invited to. I liked that, I admit it. It was heady stuff. Our reps made us more than we probably were. The thing was..I was genuinely enamoured of real talent. I loved art and music and I knew the real local artists. They were the one's who made the scene go round. For real. There was nothing phony about it. We didn't give a shit who wore what except in the aesthetic sense, like.. cool shirt, man. We just wanted to have a scene based on being happy and getting down. If someone admired our work..or would pay us, that was cool. But, it wasn't about money or being "in". It was about the time we lived in.
*
Now, Shirl was my best friend (still is) and she will snort when she reads this account. But, she will also know it's the truth. As much as I can remember..~laughs~ I doubt her memories are clearer. She was hard. She's been born into a big poor family with lots of kids and less money, but, a decent mom. She got pregnant at 17, same as me. I don't know why she kept her kid..she didn't like kids that much. Her mom helped her out with the kid a lot, but, then she died. It was rough, but, that's her story. Mine comes into play when I met her. She'd just gotten out of the state mental asylum and had been committed because she was a bad ass party girl who played by no rules. Also accused of attempted murder, but, the charge was dropped. She was working at the Coach, a little hippie bar where all the up and coming bands tried to hit it big and all the in crowd hung out. She was with her friend, Snoot..that's what I'll call that bitch..now, Snoot was well known. She had it all. She was the female equivalent of The Hog Farm boys and basically their friend. But, not. They all used each other for whatever..drug connections, party invites, backstage concert passes. Snoot had fucked them all. Snoot had fucked almost every pretty boy in three states which was amazing because that bitch weighed about 300 pounds. No shit. She bought them. Three hundred dollar silk sheets, pheasant under glass and big bags of skunk for party favors. Men are pigs. They never stayed with Snoot long and most denied it. It was a running gag. Unknown to the boys, Snoot's hobby, besides major drugs, was taking sleeping Polaroids of all their genitals while they were passed out. It still makes me laugh..Snoot's dick scrapbooks. We all saw them...and recognized many.
*
Me, I was that little hippie chick from Guntown. But, the weird thing was, after I got pregnant I blossomed. It must have been like late puberty or some shit, but, holy mackerel. I'll try and find some pics. I didn't take pics of that time, but, I think Shirl has some. She was a good photographer. Anyhow, unknown to me, I became known as that blond chick with the bod. I had huge boobs and I was little and I was pretty. This made the Snoot aware of me as The Hog Farm boys talked about me. I knew none of this. I was just a little dumb ass unwed mother who stayed home with my kid. I didn't party. I grew a tiny bit of good smoke in my back yard and I hung out with Shoeless George and painted pictures and sang in the garden. If someone had told me I was cool and the in crowd men were discussing me...I wouldn't have known what to make of it. I didn't have any girl friends. I knew who these people were, but, they were like people I read about in magazines. Not people in my fucked up boring life.
*
One day, I was walking down the street getting stoned, that's what people did back then, and I was alone. A big fancy car pulled up and a chick said, hey, wanna ride? I didn't need a ride because I wasn't going anywhere..but, that's how people got to know each other sometimes back then. It was a more innocent world. I recognized Snoot, she was famous..but, I didn't know her companion. I was really curious about them and wondering why they'd even talk to me. I jumped in the back and handed Snoot the joint. She toked in it and then said it kicked ass and wanted to know where I got it. (That she actually asked and thought I'd tell her told me a lot about her right then.) I told her I grew it. We rapped and I got to know them, I started hanging with them now and then. Snoot would always pick me up in her hippie limo. She had the best parties and I guess I became like, some kind of new thing she could introduce around. Like a party trick or party favor. They all thought I was mysterious, the truth was I was just ignorant about the whole scene and alone. You understand? Snoot doesn't matter. Her friend does. The girl in the front seat that day was Shirl. Shirl..how do I describe her? Words can never describe her really, she is an enigma. She was hard, cold, funny as hell, quick witted, sharp and beautiful. With long, long, really curly dark red hair and a pale complexion, lots of freckles. Think Lindsay Lohan but, twenty pounds less. She was a red haired Gracie Slick. Yeah, that's a much better comparison. Always the hottest fashions..all stolen. ~Laughs~ She was a notorious shop lifter. Most everyone was then. You have to understand the mentality...stick it to the man. Now is not the time to judge. Anything illegal, she would do. She was fearless, dangerous, vengeful and sexy and...I have never met anyone like her. She fascinated me. She had it all it seemed. She could scare you, but, you wanted to know more. Most people never knew her, she didn't trust anyone. She was part of the in crowd, but, she wasn't. Something inside her tortured her, she never thought she was good enough and put on a big hard front to keep people from seeing the truth.
*
I don't know how it happened, but, Shirl and I bonded. Like true sisters, to this day. We were from two different worlds. And continued to be..but, oddly, we fit together as friends. We both survived (which is a miracle) and this is one of our many stories. I think Shirl liked me because I was real with her. If I said something, I meant it. If I promised something, I did it. Period. (And she was the same way to me until a brief time when the smack took her.) Snoot turned out to be a big fronting phony. She was nothing but a big dog and pony show who only cared about impressing people. She bored me. Snoot is to this day, eternally pissed off that Shirl and I moved in together and started a new scene. She's still a bitch about it, but, pretends it isn't so and that we're impressed by her and her money.
*
So..the party...Shirl called all her friends, real and faux and I called George and Jaws and a few people I knew and it grew...and grew. At first we were just planning on tripping at the bar with the new hot band. I'll call them Wild Dog, because they were wild dogs. And I loved me some dogs, the wilder, the better. We kept passing out the acid and everybody was trippin'. The band was hot that night, the chords and bass ripped through the smoke like lightening. The place was jam packed and I'd hand painted all the posters. No copy machine in those days. Someone told me the other day they still have a one of them. I'd love to see it. I did it in the style of the one's I'd seen from Monterrey Pop. The band loved them and asked to meet me. No problem there, hey, wanna hit? Yep, they sure did. Finally the whole scene was too much for me..and it was early. Shirl should have been fired, she was tripping on the dance floor instead if mixing drinks and it was nothing but a free for all. A bunch of us painted walls in the bathrooms at one point. Crazy shit. I remember the strobe lights and those crazy ugly psychedelic moving back lights they had back then. I remember someone brought in a box of little bells and this chick named Ruby Redlips (another hippie friend of ours) tied strings of them around our ankles and arms and used them as headbands. And we tripped trying to make bell music. And the walls breathed. Heavy.
*
I don't know how I got home, but, I got there way before the bar closed. I was tripping so hard by then I saw trails off everything and everytime I stepped hard, the world turned purple. I peaked so hard, I decided to drop some more acid, which is pretty hard core. It gets to be like a yo yo effect. You peak, crash, head up, down, peak..well..it's heavy. And everything was hilarious. My sides hurt from laughing. About twenty people came with me and we made a bonfire in the driveway and danced around it like Druids in heat. Someone had drums. By the time the bar closed and Shirl and the band arrived, there were cars in ditches up and down the road and wrecks and so many people it looked like leftover Woodstock to me. The band set up in the yard and ran electrical cords from the house and blasted the crowd. It started to rain and the old house's electrical system got fried and the whole place kept cutting out. It was lit up like an amusement park and flashed on and off in the background like some horror movie set. We thought that was hilarious. So was the mud slide we made in the rain which was actually the long driveway down the hill. About a quarter mile of it. Naked screaming hippies sledding in makeshift fuck all down that hill, screaming bloody murder as the band wailed and the lights flashed and the fire got bigger and bigger. Someone brought food and people were cooking on sticks over it, naked. More dancing and yelling. Wild light trails. Jesus. On and on it went. Some genius had the bright idea to move all the furniture outside in the rain..so we did. Someone did anyway. I don't remember a lot after that. I do know there were fireworks and not just in my head. We picked them up all over later. And empty beer kegs..tons of them. The Marihoonie smoke was so thick, that two days later it still smelled like the place might be on fire. Home sweet home.
*
I woke up the next afternoon on one of the sofas, folded out to a bed. A gentle rain in my face. Naked, but, for the knotted bells. I was using the living room drapes as a blanket and I saw, next to me, a form with with long dark hair. Ohh, it had to be Shoeless George, right? Aww, that was okay, I loved him a little. I lifted the drape and saw Crazy Bill from The Hog Farm. Damn. Well, at least he was very pretty. Very pretty indeed.
*
The house was completely wrecked. You have no idea, I still can't really talk about it. I found Shirl in bed with the lead guitar player and turned around and some goofy chick neither of us knew was telling us "Excuse me, but, there are minors throwing fruit." Shirl said, what the fuck? Turned out some people who weren't passed out were having a fight with her bowl of hand carved wooden fruit. She got up and decked one of the guys. I remember he had a Hells Angels jacket on. Still today, when something is beyond belief we will look at each other and say, "Excuse me, there are minors throwing fruit." And then we howl. Minors throwing faux fruit..yeah, that's a problem. In the midst of world destruction. Jesus.
*
Crazy Bill turned out to be a nice guy, none too bright, but, still.. very pretty. I noticed someone had torn our kitchen sink off the wall so, you know, no coffee. He invited me to The Hog Farm for coffee. I didn't like those guys, they always thought they were so utterly cool.. but, I had to get out for while, so I went. We had hell getting out because of all the cars and wrecks and bodies, but, when we finally got to the farm and I was handed my coffee, one of the smart assed pseudo intellectuals played a trump card. He said, did you know that I have a direct copy of the master tapes of Wild Dog's newest album? He said it with such a shit grin, like he had something no one else could get. I smiled my prettiest smile, threw my long hair over my shoulder, looked and him and said, "That's cool. I have Wild Dog. They're passed out at my house."
*
You could have heard a pin drop. It was worth all the clean up.. and the hang over.