Stella Blue. That was the name of the dive bar on Old County Road in Belmont, CA. Just a couple blocks south of Ralston. The owner was a congenial guy whose name escapes me. His wife was an RN. If I had a fake ID I can't remember how I got it. I just don't remember using one. The owner was the bartender. Maybe he never asked? That would have been a given in "The City" (there is only one "City") San Francisco. But down on the Peninsula it was much more conservative. The cops in San Francisco seemed too busy for such a low level offense and quite frankly didn't seem to care. The cops on the Peninsula didn't have enough to do and seemed to have an unusual number of undercover narcs.
The first thing I saw when I turned on the computer this morning was a tweet from Neil Katyal "Right now SF last show beginning". I met Neil online after reading a law related piece his sister wrote that I thought was amazing. I can't remember exactly, but I think we were on the phone and Neil told me he was a Doors fan. The last time something like this happened was how I met Dr. Paul Weiss of the nanotechnology department at UCLA. I didn't tell Neal, but I took this to be an omen. And sure enough . . .
Yes, I had heard - read that the "last show" was coming up. And even though it had been a long strange trip I sure enjoyed the ride. Our family ranch was a sheep and apricot ranch. 40 acres that had been reduced down to 20 with a sale of half the land. There were mountain lions and you didn't go out on the ranch without a gun. My father was a Presbyterian Minister and after the Kennedy assassination we were preparing to move from New Orleans to Dallas and we went to California for a visit to the ranch. We stayed one night in my Uncle David's house. I think it was in Cupertino. We were there 24 days to the day after Bob Weir was introduced to Jerry Garcia at the music store in Palo Alto, 20 minutes from the ranch. It was the night of the Cassius Clay fight that was burned into my brain at 7 years old. The Beatles had just appeared on The Ed Sullivan show to take us out of the blues from the assassination. And now "motor mouth" was the champion of the world. Seven years later we moved from Dallas, Texas to San Mateo, CA. That summer before I started my sophomore year in the fall I met Sonny Barger at a round table pizza parlor at Hillsdale Blvd. and 92 at the Laurelwood shopping center and the rest was history. I had a "hardship" license I had picked up in Texas before I left and a freshman girl paid me a six-pack of beer to drive her to Winterland in San Francisco. Winterland was an ice skating rink. When my mother was eight years old she would take the train from San Jose by herself to Winterland to ice-skate. She had a very rough childhood as both of her parents were alcoholics. Ice-skating gave her joy and helped her remain sane as she was shuttled from one family member to another.
It seems like all this life was just a dream. My father was a very conservative person. He hated the Doors. But I gave him "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead" and he loved those records. Played them over and over again. My mother was a doll collector. One day I came over to my parent's house and she had a whole pile of "Jer Bears" or whatever you call the little dancing bear dolls.
At 14 a friend of mine who came out from Dallas to stay with me and I bought a car for sixty dollars. It didn't have any breaks. We would load a case of beer into the back, take a tab of acid and then drive up 92 to Skyline road in Woodside and drive about 90 miles an hour in dense fog with only the running lights. That was the only way you could see what little you could see at all. There was a hole in the floorboard in the back covered with a piece of plywood. I bought almost an identical car when I moved to Hilo Hawaii for almost the exact same amount. Crazy. Up on Skyline we would take turns peeing out the hole in the back. In Hawaii another friend of mine and I lived in the car while we built a bungalow out of a torn down Buddhist temple we bought for 50 bucks. I slept in the back and giant rats would literally lift the plywood up and come in to sleep with us in the car.
When the girl and I got to Winterland there was a line outside. She took me around to the side of the building where there was a very old shabby green door with a giant of a man in a security guard uniform. He looked at her, looked at me and without saying a word opened the door. It was dark inside but Laurie knew where she was going. She led me into a little room where there was a guy sitting alone in a chair with an empty chair next to him. He nodded to her and she said "I'll be back" and she disappeared. I sat down next to the guy with the guitar that he was noodling on. He didn't seem very good at it at the time. He just stared and his feet and quietly noodled with no amplification while staring at his feet. This went on for a few minutes and then he looked up, turned left, looked me in the eye and said "everything is very fundamental". Without missing a beat he looked back down and started to noodle again.
What seemed like seconds later the door burst open! And there was a giant of a man (I was small to begin with, now 15 years old) and he took one look at me and yelled. "What the fxxk are you doing in here? Get the fuck out of here and if I see you again I am going to knock you the fuck out!" Needless to say I ran out of the room into the dark of the backstage and found shadows and equipment cases to blend into. This turned into a ritual that seemed to last for years. It was like Groundhog Day every time. The exact same lines from Garcia and the exact same lines from Parish. The only time it changed was when Garcia was playing with his band at the Keystone in either Palo Alto or Berkeley. In Palo Alto the Hells Angels would park their bikes out front, intimidate the doorman and make themselves the doormen. Then the new President "Tiny" (Tiny didn't have a bike that I ever saw, he drove a blue Datsun B-210) would chase Laurie through the venue with Laurie literally running from him. Parish would still come into the green room and threaten me and one time I tried consoling the drummer Ron Tutt in the parking lot. Tutt was crying because Elvis had died.
Over the years the stories just went on and on. From being at Bob Weir's house up on Mt. Tamalpais with Weir really agitated "What is he doing here?" And Laurie reminding him "he's my driver". At the time Laurie was "friends" with three people in the band. Then there was David Crosby who spent most of his time "waiting for the man" while Phil Lesh and I drank at the bar at The Sweetwater tavern in Mill Valley. It had a stage the size of a king size bed. I think the bar probably held 100 people maybe? It was small, you could walk in anytime and there would be John Chipollina from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Clarence Clemons the horn player for the Bruce Springstein band and Jerry "everything is very fundamental" Garcia. Playing to a local crowd of hippy trust babies. It was harder to get laid at the Sweetwater, too many celebrity musicians were always a distraction for the ladies.
And of course the music never stopped. I was watching Jerry Garcia dancing in the stands at an Oakland outdoor show. It was one of the happiest times I had ever seen him so joyful. I turned to Laurie all confused and said "Really"? She said, "oh yea, he's a huge Who fan". O.K., so now Jerry Garcia is a closet fan. I was just joyful that Parish was nowhere in sight.
The bar owner in Belmont had named the bar after the song Stella Blue. Immediately the place seemed possessed. Possessed in a good way. It was one of those sleep on the pool table after the gig vibes. More than once I saw the sun come up. I remember two things that stood out. I am sitting there at the bar minding my own business as usual and this guy comes in. I recognized him right away. Neil Schon. If I remember correctly his father had a music store on the El Camino in San Mateo near the recording studio where Santana recorded their first album. Schon ordered a drink and sat down to tell us about a new record he was all excited about. Shortly after that Peter Frampton played Winterland. On his Frampton Comes Alive record which they recorded at Winterland, during Do You Feel Like We Do? At a quiet break in the song you hear a loud definitive whistle. That's the owner of Stella Blue.
Twenty four years later I am working on a documentary with Jim Morrison's friend (Neal?) Max Schwartz. Max was a poet photographer known as the Mad Poet from San Francisco. He gave me some pictures he shot of the band at an outdoor show in New York City in the 60s. That kind of brought everything full circle. Jerry Garcia Photo: Max Schwartz, Pitman Family archives.
The other time was when Robert Hunter played a one night solo show. I was stunned. I spoke briefly with Hunter. He was in my estimation a very serious man. I want to say there were maybe 15 people in the room? It's weird, but it was one of the memorable nights of my life. There was something about Hunter that made Garcia seem like just a guitar player. It's hard to put my finger on it. I think it was probably the yang to Bob Weir's ying? Everything is very fundamental.
So when I saw Neal (Katyal) behind the wheel of the tweet about the last show, for some reason Stella Blue jumped into my head. I don't know what the last song they played was. Not fade away? For me it's all about Stella Blue.
