Bob Dylan and others …

Bob Dylan and others

When you’re brought up as I was you were taught not to gush over the celebrities you ran into. A good example of this was when my mom and I had lunch in the patio of the Brentwood Mart where famous faces were common. That day the famous face was sitting at the table right next to us eating alone. Actor Robert Taylor was wearing a hat and dressed casually but my mom, who was a long time fan gave me a subtle nod in his direction and I recognized him as well.

Then a couple of women my mother’s age (40s) walked over, stood on either side of him and gushed. Of course they asked for an autograph but didn’t have anything to write on or write with so while he was trying to finish his lunch one of them gushed on while her friend tried to find paper and pen.

The women were loud so we knew they were tourists from Ohio and hoping to run into a famous person like him, and on and on …

Following my mom’s example I joined her in turning away so as to not add our attentions to Mr Taylor’s discomfort.

When you’re formally introduced to someone in a social situation it’s simply good manners not to gush regardless of fame or fortune. That’s the way I was brought up.

However, there was one famous person I always wanted to meet since I first became aware of his music and song writing in the early-60s. I was introduced to the music of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and a pre-electric Bob Dylan in a coffee shop in Santa Monica patronized by students called Java Jive.

It was Dylan’s lyrics and unique way of delivering them that made me gravitate towards his music. And it was Baez’s beauty and beautiful voice that made me a fan of hers.

For awhile they became my obsession and for years I fantasized about what I’d say to Bob Dylan if I ever ran into him.

Little did I know I run into him three times.

After my time with SurfGuide Magazine ended I got a job managing the Woodland Hills shop for Con Surfboards. The job came with an airconditioned studio apartment behind the shop on Ventura Boulevard. Con was a generous employer and the shop hours could be flexible if required.

At the same time I was offered a monthly column on Dick Graham’s International Surfing Magazine with the lofty title of ‘Special Events Editor’. One hundred dollars was a lot of money to me in the mid-60s after I’d lost my well paying job with SurfGuide. My deal there was a monthly salary of a twelve hundred dollars plus 10% of the advertising I sold PLUS 10% of the the revenue generated by the sales made by others PLUS a company car. PLUS all expenses paid, including a $300.00 a month entertainment budget. Going from that to $125.00 a week for managing the shop and 2.5% on sales. Of course the free apartment was a bonus.

Dick and I discussed what my column would be about and I made a pitch for music column. I was listening to a lot of FM radio at the shop and becoming aware of the many genres that appealed to me as well as my surfing friends. And it wasn’t just R&R and “surf music.” Surfing movies had introduced me to jazz. So did my visits to Java Jive, the Insomniac and Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and Coffee Bar Positano near where I had lived on Topanga Beach. Bud Shank, Dave Brubeck, etc. I was a long-time listener to R&B on the Johnie Otis radio show and then on his television show. In the late-50s and early-60s all the surfing parties I went to played R&B. Few played surfing music. So I wanted to focus on the eclectic musical tastes of what years later publisher/editor/photojournalist Marty Sugarman termed, our ‘Waterfront Culture.’

My head was spinning because the more musical genres I looked into, the more difficult it was for me to focus on any particular one to launch my column. I was suffering from ‘musical indigestion’.

Then on the radio I heard someone talk about a duo called Sonny & Cher and how they’d made Hollywood history by being the only time both Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons had featured the same people in their columns at the same time.

I’d never heard of Sonny & Cher or their music. So I bought a fan magazine to check them out. Cher looked amazing and I decided to ask Dick what he felt if my first column was about them.

He wasn’t enthusiastic. In fact, he had reservations about whether my idea would work in a surfing magazine. He told me he’d think about it, but he’d heard they were very popular at the moment doubted I’d even get close to them. I decided to prove him wrong.

My first job for the company that made Makaha Skateboards and published SurfGuide Magaine was managing the Makaha Skateboard Exhibition team. My main function was to ferry around the team to various department stores that carried the skateboards and facilitate the teams exhibition in their parking lots. Also to manage the kids themselves because they could get out of control very quickly. From there I earned my spurs when I got the Exhibition Team a spot on the Steve Allen show. The boss figured I had a talent for public relations. He appointed me as director of public relations for SurfGuide and hired Jim Ganzer (of ‘Jimmy Z’ fame) as the new team manager.

During the transition I was given a desk and phone in the building that housed the skateboard assembly, packaging and distribution center and the SurfGuide Magazine offices. I’ve always been a radio aficionado and heard a news story about how cities like Pasadena were banning skateboarding (aka Sidewalk Surfing) due to bad behavior and older people feeling intimidated.

After tuning into a couple of the radio talk shows to see if any of this had become an issue and hearing that it had, I started calling the shows to defend skateboarding and the kids, using different voices and accents. I even pretended to be upset by skateboarding and called in later to disagree with what I’d said. It all helped to turn the issue into a major story.

Then I decided to ramp it up a bit and came up with a maneuver that I’ve found useful ever since. At the time there were two major newspapers. The LA Times and the Herald Examiner. The Times was far more prestigious. So I phoned the Examiner, spoke to a reporter and told her that I’d just gotten off the phone with the Times and though the Herald might be interested too.

Hook line and sinker.

I explained that I worked for Makaha Skateboards and basically did a snow job of promoting skateboarding, our team, our brand and our commitment to good behavior and The American Way. These young, upstanding kids were just trying to have some fun and didn’t hurt anyone. They were the victims of discrimination and fear mongering. Then I approach to the Times and repeated the process.

Both newspapers printed stories about how skateboarding and skateboarders weren’t as bad as places like Pasadena made out, quoting me as a source and Makaha as a respectable brand that promoted good, healthy activities. In fact, they went so far as to suggest that the Pasadena people promoting the ban were out of touch with the modern world and a bunch of old killjoys. Makaha’s founder and SurfGuide publisher, Larry Stevenson, was delighted and I got a bigger desk.

By the time I moved on I had a term for what I’d done. I called it ‘the double-door approach’. And that’s how I decided to go forward with Sonny & Cher.

To be honest I hadn’t become a fan of their early music. I thought of the genre as ‘Lollipop music’. But the challenge was too attractive to pass up. After checking out the fan magazines at a local drug store I phoned what looked like the most expensive magazine and spoke to the editor. I told her that one of her competition had given me an assignment to interview Sonny & Cher. Would she be interested in me taking the opportunity to ask a second set of questions on their behalf?

Of course they were. Sonny & Cher! Did I know that Parsons and Hopper had … ?

The rest was easy. I got an assignment from three fan/pop magazines to interview them and was ready to … OMG! I didn’t know what to do next!

So I called around and found out that Sonny & Cher had agents (aka managers) by the name of Charlie Green and Brian Stone. They were listed in the phonebook as GreenStone Productions on Sunset Boulevard.

Taking a deep breath I phoned, introduced myself and told them I’d been asked to interview Sonny and Cher for three magazines and would like to set up a time and place. The time meant I had to close the surfboard shop one afternoon and the place was the GreenStone offices. The offices were not opulent, far from it. Small and very spartan. Businesslike but more like accountant’s office.

And this is where it gets interesting.

I bought myself a compact, portable, battery operated tape recorder. Reel-to-reel. An hour a tape on the slow speed. I bought enough batteries to replace any that ran out. It could also be plugged into the main electricity outlet.

My mistake (and one I never made again) was failing to thoroughly familiarize myself with it before I arrived for the interview.

Introductions done, I set up my recorder on the desk in the small office, got out my steno-pad with the questions and turned on the machine. Only nothing happened. Nothing. No lights no camera no action. NADA!

At that point I was sitting on the only chair. It was against the office wall between the desk and a small sofa where Sonny and Cher were sitting. It was like opening the hood of a car and waiting for the boys to arrive. Sonny told me to take his place on the sofa and then he, Brian and Charlie got down on the floor in front of the desk and started taking the tape recorder apart. They were transfixed.

So was I. Sitting next to Cher. Listening to her throaty laugh. “Like kids in the playground,” she whispered. If the boys heard her it didn’t stop them from enjoying themselves.

A couple of weeks before I’d bought myself a new watch to replace my well worn and worn out Timex. I splurged and got myself a Bulova Accutron Astronaut (on credit). Cher noticed it, reached over my right side and brought my left wrist up to her face. “Wow! What kind of watch is that?” I told her that it was electric and had a tuning fork. “What tune does it play?” She teased. It was getting seriously playful and I was almost afraid that Sonny might notice. “Dixie,” I answered.

Cher held my watch up to her ear and started singing ‘Dixie’ and smiled. “Why so it does,” she said. My heart was literally skipping around like drunk Flamenco dancer. I was hoping that Sonny might electrocute himself and feeling guilty for it already. That’s when the bubble popped!

“Got it working … all ready now.” Back to our original places before the curtain goes up.

From then on the interview went well. I got the hang of asking even more questions than I’d planned and the interview turned into more of a conversation. Cher even gave me a hug and a kiss as I was leaving. My car was parked off a side street so I had a chance to shake myself back into a sense of reality by the time I drove off. It wouldn’t be the last time I spent with Sonny and Cher.