Letters
• Lincoln Center - C. V.
Beck
• Anna Haag - Peter
Young
• Anna Haag - Claude
Hayward
Lincoln
Center
With the anticipated closure of
Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Marina del Rey, the already overloaded
Venice Health Clinic, this proposed Lincoln Center Project would further
overload remaining hospitals in the area as well as fire, police,
safety...
On the other hand, would it be
possible for a swap? That is, bring Daniel Freeman with mixed use to Venice
and have Lincoln Center go to where the old hospital in the Marina is? Or,
are there other possibilities
swap-wise?
C. V.
Beck
---------
Anna
Haag
It's wonderful to see the
Beachhead running again and online as
well.
It was saddening to read of the passing
of Anna Haag. She was always a great champion of the people and very
brave.
Carol Fondiller might remember
me. I worked with Neighborhood Legal Services in Venice beginning in 1969 and
occasionally wrote for the Beachhead.
Those were certainly among the
happiest times I've had, mostly because of the people I got to know--as well as
Carol and Anna, Rick Davidson, John Haag, Jane Gordon, Steve Clare, Judy
Goldberg, Sandy Blixton, Marge Buckley and many others. With people like those,
Venice was a small beachead of sanity in a world gone
mad.
Best wishes, Peter
Young
----------
Anna
Haag
Just ran into you when I
Googled John Haag + Venice West Cafe. In 1964, at 18, I sought out the VWC
after reading a “Sunday Supplement” type article on the past glories
of the Beat Era in Venice in the LA Times on New Year’s Day, 1964.
I was freshly in California from the
Midwest, where I had read the Beat Poets and was looking for adventure and
relevance.
I spent many a night in the
Cafe, a lonely teenager absorbing atmosphere, and met or heard many of the folks
mentioned in the article. I remember the Monterrey Jack sandwiches on sourdough
that counterman Dawson McGough made when I had enough spare change.
I was saddened to hear of the passing
of Anna Haag, who I had not seen since those days, but I recognized her
instantly in the photos. John doesn’t look much like what he looked like
then, but then, neither do I. Please offer him my condolences. None of those
folks would remember me, but It was a BIG Deal for me to hang out
there.
The VWC was my door into the
counterculture, although we didn't call it that then. Among the more famous
names I recalled seeing hearing then, I noticed the lack of several folks: one
was a truly bad poet named Clair, somebody who was often there with his wife.
Clair was always hawking his poetry volumes which had names like
“don’t step on the eggs” and “don’t step on the
bacon.”
There was an energetic
young folksinger there who called himself Dudley MacWest, or Mack West for
short, who roused us with renditions of Russian standbys like
"Meadowlands.” His brother Ed was a mechanic and i traded my old '52 MG
for his '54.
The most important
person (to my life) I met at VWC was a fellow named Vaughn Marlowe, (Snipes)
who claimed to have bought the bookstore from Milton. At the time, Vaughn was
the News Director for Pacifica’s KPFK-FM, and he invited me to become a
newsroom volunteer, which led to my years in the Underground Press, including
the LA Free Press, under Art Kunkin.
I
wrote the lead article for LAFP issue #4, an interview with Mario Savio in
December '64. LAFP led to the Sunday Ramparts up in SanFran, which led to my
starting the Communication Company with Chester Anderson. It was the street
newspaper of the Haight and, ultimately, the house organ for the Diggers. You
can check that era out at diggers.org, where much of that work has been
archived.
Just last month in SF, I
was going over archives with the archivist, Eric Noble. We dug up a wonderful
piece of work by Maurice Lacy, mentioned in your article. I had reconnected
with Vaughn in SF, and he asked me to publish Maurice's folio work "The Life and
Loves of Cleopatra", kind of as a gift for his friend Maurice, who was, almost
blind and in failing health. "Cleopatra" was saved for posterity, and of the
500 copies I printed, some found their way into various collections, but not one
reference to the work has included the name of Maurice Lacy as the artist. I
have no idea what became of Maurice, but I am glad to have gotten his name
attached to the work, as it really was a memorable set of drawings. At the time
I printed it, I was pretty paranoid, as it is pornographic in
nature.
Bravo to you for your work in
keeping Venice real and the memories alive. I have been living near Santa Fe,
NM, for over 30 years. I practice the arcane arts of authentic adobe
construction and try to keep my literary pretensions alive. I have been
engaged in gatherings with old-timers from those years, trying to keep the myths
alive. Eric Noble's archives are very extensive, crammed with stuff from that
era.
Thanks for the trip down memory
lane and feel free to pass my address along to anybody who might recall
me.
Warm regards, Claude
Hayward
Posted: Wed - September 1, 2004 at 03:51 PM