Platinum Blonde and a flamin' redhead

Platinum Blonde and a flamin' redhead 🔥






     If you are from LA and explored the almost 500 square miles you cluck your tongue when the New York Times gives some scribe a week to capture the essence of the city of the angels. When we were young we tried to explore as much as we could of this weird and occasionally wonderful place in our beat up cars while taking consciousness expanding drugs. This meant anything from watching polo played at Will Rogers Park to Mexican Midget Rodeo in Pico Rivera. However, one city that is different and a place of its own is San Pedro or just Pee-dro as locals call the place. In my youth Pedro was known as tough town where longshoremen with chips on their shoulders sat in hard-ass bars just waiting for a clueless guy to say the wrong thing. There was a story about Jimmy Harriman, a Pedro prick who claimed to have had 200 bar-fights in the harbor area without a defeat. He also entered the ring at the Olympic where he was not quite as successful but every bit as much of an asshole. The history of San Pedro is rich and complicated but we shall leave that to another time. This is about Pedro 1970-something and involved an exploration of Point Fermin while on the vitamins of L.S. and D. The kids on the trip were myself, Ed Carroll, Greg and I believe Niall White. The adventures involved  driving over the acrophobia inducing Vincent Thomas Bridge, 185 feet above the harbor by suspension that makes the road seem to sway in preparation for a terrifying plunge into the briny deep. Of course, being in the midst of a mind expansion we saw every bolt and cable as we passed holding our breath. There was also the knowledge that the bridge is the LA version of the Golden Gate for suicide leapers. Half-way over I felt a great need to reach solid land. The next stop was a look-see at the lighthouse that we assumed would be guiding ships in from the ocean except the light had not been used since World War II. We did stroll around and laugh a lot because we were fried. So, during our perigrinations we saw an old-fashioned cafe sitting alone on the bluff and thought a cold coke or even a hamburger might be great. Little did we know in our confused psychedelic condition that the Pt. Fermin neighborhood is full of half-way houses, many of them for mental patients that governor Reagan had emptied out of institutions. So, we strolled into the cigarette smoke filled Walker's Cafe and every single person from staff to diners looked in astonishment at four bearded hippies with shining eyes self-consciously take seats at the counter. It was a place where mental patients felt comfortable with and the conversations were to nobody in particular but one stood out. A disshevelled guy was asked what he wanted and he shouted "I want a platinum blonde and a flamin' redhead!" While we were too sheepish to burst out laughing but the phrase followed us back to Midvale where it was repeated well and often over the next five decades. 




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