Sea Street

THE GOLDEN ASS EMAIL

Some weeks ago, I ran a blog titled Black, White and Gray or the Golden Ass Café. It was to be the first of five sections. However, other matters came up and I addressed them in various blogs. In the interim, I was approached by a few people who said, "Was there really a place called The Golden Ass Café?" This quandary was solved a little over a week ago when I received an email from a man who had been brought to the Golden Ass Café by his mother in the early 1960's. He told me his mother's name and mentioned other people but in all honesty, I couldn't remember him or his mother or one of the artists he mentioned. So I emailed him back and asked him for more details and better descriptions and he replied with an email that jogged my memory. I am not disclosing his name but what follows is the subsequent emails of our correspondence. This is done with his permission.

----- Original Message -----
From: "S"
To:
Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2009 5:23 PM
Subject: Golden Asse

Hi David, I don't have much to say in this letter, my mother was
Gussie S. and she brought me to the Golden Asse Coffee house a
couple of times as well as the Exodos Gallery and her friend Connor
Everts who I believe is still around. She passed away a few years ago
and I was looking to see what happened to some of her old friends
that I couldn't find when she died. I Googled Alta King and your
article apeared. I have a copy of the book "The Golden Asse" signed
to her by Glen Bye. I've gone to the coffee house that is now in the
area and no one knows about the Golden Asse, and the bust for nude
paintings the police considered porn at the time. I just thought I'd
say hi and tell you my story.

S.

Dear S.

Your e-mail totally blew my mind. I left California in the mid-70's and
beyond my three California children, who are all grown up now, I have
practically no California contacts; but your e-mail brought back many
memories and beyond that, proved to my wife that I didn't make the "Golden
Ass Cafe" up. I must admit that I don't remember Connor Everts or your
mother; perhaps you can send me enough information to jog my memory--photos,
descriptions, etc.

Thank you.
David

My mother Gussie S. was a heavy set woman and she took painting lessons upstairs at the Exodus Art Gallery, now my memory fails me a little as the the location on 6th St. of your coffee house, but the gallery run by Connor Everts was on the south side of the street upstairs and the staircase was marked with an X, your Coffee house was either down below or across the street, there is a vacant lot there where the gallery was today. The gallery had artists like Edward Kienholz and John Wesley showing. Connor Everts was married to an Asian woman artist named suzoko and owned the gallery and back then he did a lot of pen and ink drawings of skeletons, once he had a showing of his work on the subject of returning to the womb and two police busted him and beat him up, it made the news back then and I believe he won the case. I understand he is still alive and living in Torrance somewhere but I really don't know. I believe a guy who worked for the News Pilot named Allen Peterson also was at that gallery.

My mother had black hair and was recently widowed at that time, she had a very pretty face and liked to sing a lot of folk songs though she wasn't a singer. I would have to look up and scan some younger fotos of her as all the ones I have right now are from her 80's. I think she just started working for the Department of Employment, she became good friends with Alta King, maybe at the Golden Asse, but I do remember going to her house over near Cabrillo Beach just above Pacific Ave., she may still live there with her husband John King. I kinda knew her youngest daughter and remember sitting with her in her basement (I think it was one of her older sisters room) to watch TV as the adults drank tea with natural sugar, avocados from her tree and lots of folk music. For a while I know that Alta worked as a singer at the Ports of Call.

I don't believe my mother understood how important some of the people you mentioned in your article were to the beat generation and I mentioned some to her and she didn't know who they were. When she was alive I had mentioned Bukowski as he was a San Pedro Resident back then, and she didn't know who he was. My mom also hung around Murial Olguin. I do remember a story of a couple of guys getting busted for pot in front of the gallery as well as the case where the nude paintings were interpreted by the police as porn trying to use the name "Golden Asse" as promoting porn somehow.

As I said I have a copy of the Golden Asse signed by Bye to my mother and I tried to donate it to the San Pedro Historical Society but no one knew about the Golden Asse, maybe I might bring it back to them with a copy of the story you wrote.

There is a coffee house in that area called Sacred Grounds, if you have more on the Golden Asse I might show them so they would understand the heritage of Coffee houses on 6th St. If you ever write more about the Golden Asse, I would sure like to know more, let me know. I'm 57 now but I was just a kid then, hey the Beatles didn't even happen yet!

S.

Dear S.

Now I remember your mother. As I recall, we had conversations about being Jewish. Since I am 70 years old now, you would have been 13 years younger than I and I was at the Golden Ass Cafe from age 22 to age 24 so you would have been a young kid and I believe that I have a vague memory of you.

I got involved with the Golden Ass Cafe because of a saxophone player named Gonzoles. He and I were both members of the 72nd Army Band stationed at Fort MacArthur. We played at the Golden Ass on weekends. Alta King sang Folk Music on Wednesday nights. I got discharged on January 20, 1962, my 23rd birthday and Glen Bye offered me a partnership for the amount of my discharge pay--about $1,500.00. No papers were ever signed; it was all done on a handshake; but it did guarantee me a steady playing job and a chance to baby-sit the coffee house when Glen was working. That's how I got busted for selling a nude painting of a fat woman in a rocking chair. At the same time a Buick automobile coil spring was seized because it was mounted on a wooden base with a brass plate that said "Poor Richard". When Glen and I ended up in Court, the main charge was in relation to the coil spring. It sat on the evidence table, painted red, looking provocative and the Prosecutor said that it represented a limerick titled "Poor Richard". The limerick had been written on the blackboard by a witness who was a professor of English Literature at Long Beach State. The limerick went something like this, "There once was a guy with a corkscrew prick who was commonly called poor old Dick". The limerick went on to declare that poor Richard's dick turned to the left. Our lawyer asked the Prosecutor if his case was built prima facie on said limerick. The Prosecutor said, "Certainly!" Whereupon our lawyer said, "Your Honor, I am asking for a dismissal of these charges since it is clear that this Buick coil spring turns to the right."

The Judge was laughing when he banged his gavel down and said, "Dismissed!!!!"

The other matter--the Nude Lady--was deemed to not be offensive to community standards. To my knowledge, this was the first use of the "community standards" defense and it ultimately led to the publication of pubic hair in magazines like Playboy. At least this is what I've been told and I take pride in that.

As for Alta King, she was my mother's age which would put her in her late 80's now. I googled her and found that she has her age listed as 75. Her husband, John, has his age listed as 65+ All I know is that John King was several years older than I. Considering all the time that has passed, it is comforting to know that they still live on Palo Verde Hill. Their house had a magnificent view of Los Angeles Harbor, the Long Beach Bridge and the expanse of the Pacific. I spent many wonderful evenings in their company and when my marriage to my first wife broke up, I gave them a painting of my daughter and some furniture which they may still have. I also briefly dated Alta's oldest daughter, Susan, an exquisitely beautiful girl.

You mention that Connor Everts had an Asian wife which brought him into focus for me because my first wife was a Japanese girl named Fujiko (who later became a well-known dress designer). I'm sure we got together at some point.

It was at the Golden Ass Cafe that I met and got involved with Alona Leshem who in time became quite famous in Israel.

One of our regulars was the Rabbi from Temple Shalom who invited me to sing the High Holiday Service that year. It was my first effort at being a Cantor. Since then, I have sung the Kol Nidre Service all over the world. I was like your mother in that many of the people who became famous beatniks did not make that much of an impression on me in those years. I remember Bukowski and Kerouac and Hunter and the night that Allen Ginsberg was busted for saying, "Jesus Christ was a man like me--balls and all."

It's funny looking back and realizing that at the time I didn't know that the Golden Ass Cafe would become a part of history. So thank you again, S., for reviving so many warm and beautiful memories.

David
Coming next week----------------Obama's Katrina
Be sure to watch David Rojay on The Dan and Dad Show each Saturday night at 9:30 on Channel 17. Read A RED STATE HERO AND THE LONG BRIDGE RUNNER by David Rojay on capecodtoday.com. Read Sea Street-David Rojay's blog on capecodtoday.com and finally check out David Rojay on YOUTUBE. For more information, Google "David Rojay".