TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

It was Springtime in NYC when Lance finished the mural. He was so homesick by then he kept imagining what it was like in Southern California. The weather could be unpredictable at home. Sometimes it rains in the Spring, other times it's so sunny you can go down to the beach for a game of Frisbee. You never know from year to year what Mother Nature will bring. What he did know was that he was tired of New York. The snow, the cold, even the color of the frozen dog turds, it had all gotten to him. He just wanted to see a green leaf, a real live green leaf.

There wasn't anything tying him to New York anymore. Waiting around another week or two, he thought maybe he could nurse along another job. But nothing turned up.

The loft had been cleaned up, his clothes were packed, and he stopped by Electric Lady Studio to say his last goodbyes.

Walking down to the recording studio area, he ran into Bob Levine, a member of Jimi’s key management team, and Jerry Morrison coming up the stairs with Carlos Santana. He didn't recognize Carlos at first because he was wearing one of those caps that holds all your hair in. Lance wasn’t used to seeing him that way.

Bob looked up at Lance as they passed and said, “Here he is now. Lance, I want you to meet Carlos.” Lance looked surprised.

“Wow, I’ve been looking at your mural, man,” Carlos complimented him. "You did all that? That's amazing!"

Carlos booked the studio to record his new album, but all of that took a back seat to his curiosity about the meaning of Lance's work. Walking up and down the length of the massive painting in the narrow, curved hallway, Carlos wanted to know everything about each section. He then explained to Lance what he thought was its significance. This took Lance back. Most people spent more time trying to figure out what he was trying to say.

For the next two and a half hours Carlos and Lance spoke about the mural's concept. Lance could tell their conversation was very important to the rock legend. Never mind that an orchestra of musicians filed into the recording studio booth with their instruments in hand. Carlos didn't give it a second thought when they sat down and waited patiently for him to come in and start recording. This was costing him a fortune. The studio time alone was around five thousand dollars for a half-day session. Add the musician’s time in and Carlos Santana wasted fifteen thousand dollars that day so that he could talk to Lance about his creation.

The recording session got underway. Lance and Carlos finally parted ways. As Lance left the studio for the last time, it was very apparent to him that Carlos was a very spiritual person.

Taking a cab to the airport, Lance figured he could've stayed in New York and spent all the money he earned on the mural or he could go home where he belonged.

FINISHING THE MURAL

Lance worked diligently for seven months to bring his space mural to life. From the beginning he conceived a basic visual of what it would be and where he was going to go with it. But incorporating ideas from a painting he did in a Honolulu clothing store called, The Wizard, along with the inspiration of the comic books which forced him into the illusion, plus the configuration of the studio itself, he ended up creating a wonderfully colorful three-dimensional image looking outside of a spacecraft into the beyond.

At one point, there was so much going on, Lance felt like he was lost. To collect his thoughts and find a light at the end of the tunnel, he sat down and listed everything he still needed to do to finish.

During the process, people from the studio came over occasionally to see Lance's progress, except Eddie Kramer, of course. They never did hit it off. So it wasn't really a big surprise when he announced he was done.

Tearing it down, Lance removed hundreds of staples, rolled up the heavy one hundred foot long canvas, and he and a friend lugged it through the streets of Greenwich Village to the studio.

Installing the canvas in the narrow hallway, Lance planned it pretty well. There were certain places where the floor was uneven. The canvas wasn't going to bend at this point, stiff from coats of dried paint, so he cut it and pieced it together with rubber cement.

With help, it only took a couple of hours to staple it to the two battens (one by three inch strips of wood screwed to the top and the bottom of the wall). As he worked, everyone started coming out of the offices to watch him finish up. They'd seen the corridor walls looking the same way for so long, a boring gray speckled textured wallpaper. This certainly made a huge difference, kind of like when in The Wizard of Oz where the film changes from black and white to Technicolor.

Walking up and down the hallway, people stopped and gathered together in small groups of two and three to discuss the mural and Lance's talent. Suddenly, Eddie Kramer darted out of his office while Lance was still stapling. Way amped, he ignored everyone around and walked the length of the corridor, his eyes intensely viewing Lance's masterpiece. "Gee," Eddie finally spoke in front of everyone standing around. "If I was rude to you, I'm sorry, man. I had no idea what you were doing here."

The crowd went dead silent and dropped back. As Eddie turned to talk to a staff member on the other side of the hallway, a couple of secretaries approached Lance, "Do you realize what just happened?

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked, distracted but kind of confused.

"Eddie Kramer just apologized to you in public," the other secretary said.

It took a minute for it to sink in, then Lance smiled to himself and finished wrapping things up.

CULTURAL SUNDAYS

On the weekends Lance didn't go up to Woodstock with the gang, he'd try and take a break from the intensity of his work. He got a map of the local tourist spots and rode the subway all around town, even to the Bronx once to see the Botanical Gardens.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the eastern edge of Central Park with its Natural History and Ancient Art Sections were superb, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan with it's Picasso drawings. Each floor exhibited a different era; impressionist, dadaist, fauvist painters, then on the top floor was one big room with a piece Monet painted at the turn of the 20th Century called, "Water Lilies." It was huge, about thirty-eight by forty-one feet. Looking up close, each of Monet's brush stokes were rough and undefined, but stand back and Lance wondered how the artist did it. The colors were so peaceful. It didn't just look real to Lance, it looked like it was alive. He left the museum wishing he could exhibit there one day.

The Guggenheim Museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was a trippy, multi-level, round building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. You'd go up and up and around the spiral ramp leading to each floor.

Their exhibits were just as trippy. Although Lance could paint anything he put his mind to, he favored the human form. His mermaids and mythical sculptures were very realistic. As he walked through the Contemporary Gallery in the museum, it was amazing that everywhere he looked there was no attempt to include anything that resembled life or anything you could relate to. It was just weird. As far as content, message, or meaning, it was devoid and trying to tweak people's minds.

Someone suggested he visit a gallery in the Soho section of town. When he opened the door, all of the art pieces were sitting on the floor. He figured they were setting up the show so he left. When he went back a few days later, nothing had moved. It was still all on the floor. Lance was starting to get upset. This was New York City. Space was valuable. A week passed and the disorganized art gallery was really messing with his head. Then an article came out in the New York Times. The artist intentionally put his pieces on the floor. The way he dropped it and where it landed was the artist's message. Go figure.

One thing you could always count on were the amazing bookstores in the Village. Kind of like the messy contemporary gallery, there were stacks of books piled high on top of each other. You might find what you wanted, but then you'd have to figure out how to get it out to buy it. But it was worth it. The books were so extraordinarily cheap. Lance found large volumes with photos of outer space, and pictures of exploding galaxies for his mural.

Central Park was the biggest scene on Sundays. Everyone wore their best duds. There were street musicians, roller skaters, sometimes rallies, people would come out just to be seen. It was a lively show-off place.

Intentionally featured in the park for people to climb on were very artistic looking rock formations. Lance didn't realize it at first but it was bedrock. You could also see bedrock in the foundation of the skyscrapers surrounding the park. The ancient rocks in and around Central Park were where eons before the glaciers carved grooves in the exposed chunks of bedrock.

Lance even did the tourist thing, and had a girlfriend take him up to the top of the Empire State Building. They rode the elevator up the 102 floors to the observation deck. Four days earlier, the World Trade Center, which was under construction, passed up the Empire State Building in height. There was also the thirty-five cent round trip on the Staten Island Ferry, where they cruised past the Statue of Liberty.

All in all, Lance certainly didn't take advantage of everything New York City had to offer. He only skimmed the surface. But then again, he was there to do a job.

ON THE TOWN

Lance felt like a fish out of water even before he landed at JFK. It wasn't just NYC, he never felt comfortable in any big city. It was so contrary to who he was. The beach lifestyle blended well with Lance's spirit. He became more and more apprehensive as the plane taxied up the tarmac. Was he going to fit in?

New Yorkers come out in shifts. Early morning, service trucks dashing up and down the streets, deliveries, milk men. Seven to nine sidewalks fill with people hailing cabs and walking to work, same crowd at lunch. In broad daylight you could literally watch somebody break into a car with no police for blocks. Shoppers out and about after five, it’s hysterical. Nobody talks to each other on the street in the City. They just grip their pocketbooks as tight as they can and look straight ahead like they’re in a trance. Around seven p.m. the dinner crowd emerges, whatever you’re hungry for, New York has it, then after midnight is when things get real gamey; transvestites, semi-humans, whatever you want to call them, come out from the cracks in the sidewalk.

At first Lance started hanging out with Michael Jeffery and his girlfriend, Lynn Bailey. Sandy blonde hair, fair skin, slim, petite, like a model, Lynn had a somewhat bubbly personality. She knew she had moneybags on her arm. Michael got her a new Mercedes sports car when Lance was there and people in the studio were raising their eyes a bit. But she always treated him with respect. In fact, she and Michael had a very good relationship.

Once Lance got used to the subway system, he began venturing out on his own and with people from the studio. One afternoon when business was winding down, Devon approached Lance and asked, "Hey, we're going to the Hippo tonight. Want to come along?"

"Sure, why not," Lance thought. It might be kind of fun. So he, Devon, and three of her groupie friends dressed to the hilt in their flouncy dresses and feather boas jumped in a cab to hit the town.

The Hippo or Hippopotamus was a Euro style nightclub located on 54th Street between 3rd and Lexington. Most everything was painted white, very upscale, hip, with a clean decor. It was dimly lit, with two or three disco balls hanging from the ceiling. Lance heard the owner traveled with the celebrity circuit; a lot of famous rock bands in the sixties frequented the club on any given night.

As soon as he and the group of ladies entered the Hippo, Lance looked around for the bandstand. He asked Devon when the DJ was going to stop playing songs on the jukebox and the musicians would start up. "Oh no," she chuckled. "This is a disco, Lance. There is no band."

No sooner did the girls and Lance grab a booth in the back, when a group of musicians walked in with a couple of the original members of Traffic, minus Stevie Winwood. Instantaneously, Devon and her friends slid across the dance floor, swooped down on the rockers, and brought them back to their booth.

A couple of the musicians brought girls with them. Unfortunately, for one of the poor things, Devon was shining on her boyfriend. You could tell this wasn't the first time Devon met the guy. It was obvious they knew each other well. When everyone piled into the booth, Devon sat next to him, leaving barely enough room for the girlfriend to squeeze in on the edge.

You had to give Devon credit. She did everything she could to keep the guy's attention focused on her. Talking to him animatedly, her eyes were as big as saucers when she wasn't batting her eyelashes, and her arms flew every which way as she repeatedly bumped the poor girl with her butt nearer and nearer to the edge.

When the group was getting ready to leave the club, Devon told Lance, "You wanna get the check?" That's when it hit him that the only reason he was invited was to pay the bill at the end of the night.

Hailing down a cab, which isn't the easiest thing to do in the City, the girls, the musicians, and Lance piled in for the ride home. Again, Devon sat next to the guy, still carrying on, and elbowing the girl on her other side. Finally, the girl spoke up, annoyed, "Why do you keep hitting me?"

"Honey, if I hit you, you'd be in the street," Devon barked back.

Back at the studio, as everyone was going inside, Lance headed back to his loft. Devon shouted, "Lance, aren't you going to party with us?" Lance declined. He'd had enough.

Max's Kansas City on Park Avenue South was another hip place in New York City. William Burroughs, the poet would come by, as well as artist, Robert Rauschenberg. Warhol's group, The Factory were always within reach of Andy, and Bowie, Lou Reed, and The Velvet Underground would pop in occasionally.

One night, Lance got invited to Max's where Andy Warhol held court. He'd heard the buzz about the club, but he never really respected Warhol's act. He also knew the group, including a few people from the studio, was into a really bad drug scene, heroin. He'd been around when they were chipping chiva at Electric Lady. He didn't want anything to do with it.

Down at the other end of 8th Avenue in the East Village, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground played the Electric Circus, and there was always something happening at the Fillmore East.

Bill Graham, the owner of the Fillmore West in San Francisco, opened a club in New York in 1968. Headliners like Hendrix, the Allman Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and the Jefferson Airplane always put on outrageous shows at either of the Fillmores.

Occasionally, Lance would take a date and walk the few blocks from his loft to the Fillmore East. A favorite of his to see live was Mountain, a hard rock band with singer and guitarist Leslie West, bassist Felix Pappalardi and drummer N.D. Smart. One of their hit songs on the radio was "Mississippi Queen." 

STUDIO TIME

Although Woodstock opened up a whole new world to Lance, just hanging out at the studio was trippy enough for him.

Daylight hours were spent warming up to working on the mural; developing new ideas, motivating himself. Nobody in the loft actually got up until noon, which was when Holy Moses split for Electric Lady. Thank goodness, Lance never could get anything done when the boys were around. They were starting fires right and left, especially in the evening when they geared up. That's usually when the chaos began. As soon as the band left, Lance was able to concentrate on matters at hand.

After putting in four or five hours of work, Lance would take a break and show up at the studio just when the staff was calling it a day. Those moments were too special to miss, especially when musicians were in town to record. The clock would strike five and associates, roadies, engineers, friends, and the recording artists would congregate in the upstairs lounge area centered between Michael Jeffery’s office and the cubies.

When Lance heard that The Ghetto Fighters recorded at the studio on a regular basis, he initially imagined gang bangers. He didn’t know that the twin brothers, TaharQa and Tunde R Aleem had recorded on three of Jimi's albums, "Cry of Love," "Rainbow Bridge," and "War Heroes." He also wasn’t aware that they had worked with Sam Cook, Sam & Dave, and Otis Redding, just to name a few, or that they were the founders of the Harlem World Club, a precursor to rap.

Listening to them play, Lance saw that they were two unbelievably talented and deeply evolved musicians trying to overcome the repression of the ghetto.

Standing around and feeling a part of the loose-knit group of fifteen or so, someone would sing a few chords of a classic song from the past and the rest would spontaneously go into riffs. They were so steeped in the culture of Harlem, it was a high point of hanging out at the studio.

There were a number of musicians coming in and out of Electric Lady. Lance heard about a young woman that had an outrageous talent. The studio was trying hard to get her in to record, but getting her organized and in the booth on time was next to impossible.

This was no isolated issue. There were so many talented young performers who stood out on street corners, harmonizing in the middle of the cold winter nights in New York. Knowing they could easily make it in the entertainment business and getting them focused were two entirely different matters. It just wasn’t going to happen.

People went on and on about this one particular young woman who was A.D.D. and high strung, but a huge talent. They actually got her in once, but to keep her entertained while the recording process ran on, her manager had to sprinkle fairy dust all over the studio. The fairy dust was actually metallic flake, which was not good at all for the recording equipment. It took days to get everything cleaned up and back in tip-top shape.

One afternoon, Lance was hanging out as usual, and Carly Simon came in to make some last minute changes on her first self-named album. For some reason, Lance thought this was the young woman with the fairy dust. He sat and watched her cavort around the studio with her entourage in tow. Most musicians that came in to record, no matter what level, would stop and talk with everyone. It was a very social scene. But not Carly. She made a beeline for the booth, recorded, and was out of there. If she did speak to anyone, it was to her surrounding flock.

The Third World, a reggae band before reggae was popular, came in the studio when Lance was in New York, and recorded "America The Beautiful." Their music definitely had an island influence, but it wasn’t totally ethnic.

Definitely part of the social scene, the band members saw a painting of Lance’s, depicting a woman embracing the universe. They loved it so much they wanted to use it for their album cover. Even though Lance and the band went to the RCA office together to show the big cheese his work, a couple of weeks later the album came out with a cover showing the American Flag burning. It had nothing to do with his work.

Over time, it got to the point where Lance felt very comfortable walking into the studio in the observing area to watch the musicians record. Someone would say so and so was recording in Studio “B,” and Lance would go in and listen. No problem.

A frequent visitor at the studio was Devon Wilson. Originally from Milwaukee, Devon was a prostitute in Vegas when she was just fifteen years old. After she moved to New York City, she hooked up with rock legends like Mick Jagger and Brian Jones of the Stones, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Traffic, and Jimi Hendrix.

Slender, around 5’9”, with a long afro, she wasn’t particularly memorable looking. It wasn’t like, “Wow!” when you saw her, but Devon was Jimi’s on-again/off-again girlfriend and his personal assistant. Jimi’s song, Dolly Dagger is all about her.

Devon would show up at the studio quite often, reviewing tapes of tracks that Jimi had laid down. The vaults in the walls of the studio were filled with stacks of reels of Jimi’s music. She, Michael Jeffery, and Senior Engineer, Eddie Kramer sorted through the tracks and out of it came the "Cry of Love" album.

It always felt uneasy when Devon was in the studio. Lance asked someone once why they let her in if it just made everyone nervous, and they said that Devon was really good at blackmailing people. It was easier to just work with her.

The roadies hung out at the studio as well; specifically Gerry Stickells and Eric Barrett. Both Gerry and Eric were big guys with British accents, and a lot of fun. The electrical engineer and one of the founding techs, Shimon Ron had been an Israeli commando. At least that’s what he told Lance. He had an interesting edge to him. He was kind of like a green beret, only more intense.

Drugs were definitely passed around at the studio after hours. There’d be a little coke here and there, and of course, pot, but taking drugs wasn't everyone’s focus.

Michael Jeffery actively interacted with everyone. He had such an upbeat personality. He was the studio cheerleader. Lance was overwhelmed and star struck at times with the whole experience.

It wasn’t always this rock legend paradise, though. There were situations that Lance would have rather avoided. He wasn't the type of guy who liked confrontation anyway. He just wanted everyone to get along.

Since Lance's arrival in NYC, there was a bit of dissension in the ranks. A couple of people couldn't understand why Michael Jeffery was putting up some small-time artist on the studio's tab for who knows how long, to paint a pretty picture. Profits should go toward buying much needed equipment, not a mural. Now that Jimi was gone they had to make Electric Lady a working studio. This didn’t sit well with Senior Engineer, Eddie Kramer.

As a result, whenever Lance came into Studio A, Eddie's domain, while he was setting up for a recording session, the high-strung engineer would get distracted. “What are you doing in here?” he’d ask, perturbed. Lance never faulted Eddie, the man had a job to do, but it was an uncomfortable situation whenever they ran into each other.

Lance got the hint real quick and from then on he hung out in Studio B where there was a much easier atmosphere. Eddie didn’t run the show in that room. Then he would return to the loft and paint into the early hours of the morning.

WOODSTOCK

Lance met quite a few people involved in show business during his stay in NYC. Makes sense, he was painting a commission for a recording studio, plus his connection with Jerry Morrison and all his friends. Once allowed into their click, he discovered they had their own language, “Carny Talk,” which is kind of like Pig Latin.

The way it works is you insert the sound "izz, azz, or eez before the first vowel sound of a word. It's based on how the word is pronounced. For example, bread is "brizzzead" and friend is "friezzend" in carny.

Wizzat dizzoo yizzou neazzeed to neezow? It's really nizzot that tizzough my frizziend.

Translation: What do you need to know? It's really not that tough my friend.

On the weekends, Lance would pile into a limo with Michael Jeffery, a bunch of people from the studio, and various friends and drive up to Woodstock. Jeffery owned a beautiful country estate, equipped with a very proper English butler and maid on hand to grant your every wish; authentic English breakfast served every morning, cocktails in the evening. The gang would hang out at night in a huge library full of English literature, while tapes of Joey Dee and the Starliters played “The Peppermint Twist,” with Hendrix playing backup on guitar. Jimi was very tucked in compared to the look of the sixties; short hair, waiter-type suit with no collar. He definitely hadn’t gone off yet. 

Woodstock is obviously best known for the infamous concert, but the festival didn’t take place in town. Yasgur’s Farm is actually twenty miles away. The peaceful little community was where music producers, executives, and hippies lived cohesively.

The Halpernion Brothers owned an estate in Woodstock that was once owned by the mafia. A couple of pretty tough guys, they were Carnies who made and distributed tattoo guns to tattoo parlors on Coney Island. They weren’t really brothers. They met when one of them broke into the other’s apartment in NYC with a sub-machine gun to rip off his heroin stash. The one who was being robbed responded, “No, I’m not gonna give it to ya!” They ended up talking it out and became best friends.

Contrary to what you'd believe, the Brothers had a reputation for defending the hippies that lived in Woodstock. If they found out some redneck was hassling them, they’d turn around and terrorize the harasser.

Lance really enjoyed going over to the Halpernion's estate. He was especially impressed with the antique bar made out of dark wood. Horseshoe shaped, ten foot across, it had an elevated back bar with ornate posts. Laying on top of the bar were stacks of Marvel comic books the Brothers had collected over the years. Lance sat for hours looking at the inspiring graphics. He couldn't get over how the far out cartoon characters were drawn so vividly and with such precision. Not wanting to stop, he asked one of the Brothers, “Can I borrow a few of these to get some ideas for my mural?”

“Of course. Just make sure you return them. They’re classics.”

Lance returned to his loft on a Sunday night. Standing back and looking at the work he'd completed, ideas danced in his head then popped onto the massive canvas.

WHEN CHUCK CAME TO TOWN

The Director of Rainbow Bridge, Chuck Wein, showed up in NYC in December. He finished editing the movie in Los Angeles and flew back east to dub in Jimi's soundtrack. Chuck was only thirty years old and a very intelligent young man. That's probably why he was nicknamed, "The Wizard." After graduating from Harvard he spent the early to mid-sixties making movies with Andy Warhol. Chuck's girlfriend, Edie Sedgwick became famous as the artist's muse. He was also Otto Preminger, the well-known movie director's protégé, who said Chuck wrote the best dialogue he'd ever read.

With a thin build and long brown hair, Chuck was prone to wearing muslin shirts and pants and a leather strap tied around his head. He was very deep, as well, and psychic. Lance never put too much faith in that sort of thing. His beliefs lied in his religion. But Chuck blew him away one day when he read Lance's astrological chart. He was very astute in his interpretations.

As a treat, Chuck invited everyone at the studio to join him for a pre-screening of Rainbow Bridge. Even though it was only a rough cut, he was excited to show his baby off to his friends. He'd been nurturing it for a year and a half, since back when Hynson came to him with the concept.

The studio reserved a screening room for the private showing. Of course, Michael Jeffery came. He was the guy responsible for Jimi doing the soundtrack so he had a vested interest in the film. Chuck arrived with his good friend, Melinda Merryweather on his arm. The previous summer when they were filming the movie in Maui, Jimi had asked Melinda, who recently married Mike Hynson, to decorate the studio offices. Charlie Bacis, a fashion designer in New York was also part of Chuck's entourage. Thirty or so guests, including the studio manager, Jim Marron, engineers, secretarial staff, and friends, gathered in the room and settled in to see the invitation-only premier of Rainbow Bridge.

Everyone waited anxiously. Because of Jimi's involvement, there was a lot of anticipation at Electric Lady Recording Studio about Rainbow Bridge. It had only been three months since they lost their beloved friend. The rumored film footage Chuck shot of Hendrix in the Islands would be the first glimpse they'd have of him in an excruciatingly long time. Maybe it would be a way to say their final goodbyes.

The movie began without a score. Hawaiian cowboys also known as paniolos, surfing by the greats; Nuuhiwa, Fletcher, Hynson, beautiful Seabury Hall, the private girls school where they shot the film, the visuals at the beginning were wonderful.

As Rainbow Bridge progressed, actual dialogue was eventually exchanged between the "actors," but Lance noticed it wasn't scripted. Chuck was just filming people's off-the-cuff opinionated conversations about everything under the sun. He loved it when drama took over. He capitalized on it wherever spotted. I guess you could say this was one of the first "reality" shows, but in movie form.

Lance couldn't believe his eyes and ears. He kept waiting to catch a story line, some reason why these people were doing what they were doing. There was kind of a vague plot, and he thought the footage of Jimi Hendrix was an amazing insight into the rock idol that had never before been shown, but other than that there wasn't any content. It was so loosely structured that he kept scrambling to figure out what was going on.

Since Chuck was some Hollywood director prodigy, Lance expected more. He wanted really heavy stuff, sparks to fly, something meaningful. But it just droned on, one vignette after another of people pompously going on about how evolved they all were.

The movie ended with Lance pissed off that Chuck received a million dollars financing from Warner Brothers and this was all he could come up with. As the house lights came back on, Lance said rather loudly, "Where's the movie?"

"Oh, no, this isn't the final version," Chuck and Melinda said defensively in unison. "We still need to add the score and the special effects."

"Special effects, you need a story, not special effects," Lance barked back carelessly. He sincerely believed that Rainbow Bridge couldn't possibly be finished.

After spouting off enough, Lance realized he was becoming inconvenient to the rest of the group and ostracized, so he shut his mouth and kept his feelings to himself the remainder of the time he spent in NYC.

MORE ROOMMATES

With the loud music and mischievous behavior under control, Lance only had one other problem with the boys in the band and their entourage. They were filthy dirty, and smelled really bad. Whenever Lance did his laundry he had to strip down all ten beds just to get the stink out of the loft, and his pad wasn’t exactly the kind of place you could leave dirty clothes, food, open whiskey bottles, and beer laying around. Since Day 1, Lance had been fighting an uphill battle with cockroach infestation.

Living at Kawella Bay, he was used to cockroaches. Any place you have tropical weather, you’re going to have problems with roaches. It’s a given and you just deal with it. But there's a difference between roaches in Hawaii and those in New York. In the Islands they’re huge, like small pets. When you walk into the kitchen, they freeze for an instant then scatter. In New York City the roaches are small, but bolder. Let's say you go to make a sandwich. They don't disappear into the woodwork. They just sit there and watch you. You can even smack one with a newspaper and the others won’t flinch. They give you absolutely no respect. To make a meal, Lance would first wash the counter down with organic bug spray. The next day, they’d be back.

Lance found out the hard way where the roaches were living; behind the expensive decorative wooden slats in the kitchen that Rudananda raved about. While spraying between the slats one day, roaches began pouring out by the droves. At one point, he actually thought he was gaining on them until he felt something on his neck. It was nothing, just an itch. He brushed it off. He felt something on his head, then again and again. Slowly looking above the slats, Lance watched as a trail of roaches crawled up the wall, onto the ceiling, and were dropping on him one by one.

Jumping out of the way, and brushing one or two roaches out of his hair, Lance was now on a mission. He was not going to let the filthy little scavengers win. Spraying with determination, he held strong and actually managed to knock them back to just a few.

Sleeping that night in his bed, twenty feet from the kitchen, was when Lance realized he was just fooling himself. Under the cover of nightfall, the roaches crawled out of the slats, up the wall and onto the ceiling. Making their way into Lance's bedroom, they bombarded him one after another while he lay in his bed.

ROOMMATES

To get to Lance’s loft, you climbed up three flights of stairs on the outside of the building and enter through a metal doorway. Once inside, the room was configured into one long straight room, seventy feet long by fifteen feet wide. There were four windows that overlooked 4^th Avenue, one with a fire escape that led you down to the street. In the back of the loft was a small kitchen with expensive wooden slats over a brick wall for decoration. Plus there was an eight by ten-foot room built in the back corner by the bathroom and the kitchen, which was where Lance slept.

Not long after Lance moved in, the studio informed him that the band, “Holy Moses” would be recording for a few weeks, and they needed a place to stay.

Cheap beds with foam rubber mattresses were spread out around the floor for Billy Batson, the leader, lead guitarist, Ted Speleos, rhythm guitarist, David Vittek, Marty David who played bass/tenor sax, and drummer, Christopher Parker. Also joining them were their roadies and girlfriends, about ten new roomies in all.

Suddenly thrust upon Lance was a loft full of young, immature kids who got blasted out of their minds every night then came back home, plugged in their amps, and played music until dawn. Lance was only 29 years old and could stay up late and party with the best of them, but he had work to do, months of work before he finished the mural. That was the only thing he was concerned about.

Tensions mounted over the ensuing weeks. Ted Speleos, the youngest at 16 years old, slept in a bed the studio rigged to the ceiling with chains. Ted would get on the bed in the middle of the night and start swinging it back and forth until the whole building began vibrating. After a few complaints from the writer upstairs and some of the other neighbors, Lance did everything he could to quiet them down. It never really had an impact on the boys, though. They just gave him guff.

One night while Lance was working on a section of the canvas panel, the band was jamming and smoking pot. Suddenly, there was knock on the door. His first thought was that Sensei was complaining again, but they had patched things up long ago. Besides, it was way too late for karate class. Lance answered the door.

“You’re making a lot of racket here, son,” the older policeman said. With the smell of pot permeating throughout the loft, all Lance could think of was that his parents would get a call that their son was in jail in New York City. “I don’t know what else to do, Officer,” pleaded Lance. “I’ve tried repeatedly to get them to stop. But they don’t seem to listen too well.”

“Well, you better figure something out,” the cop advised Lance. “Your neighbors already aren’t on your side, and just a warning, son, if there’s another knock on your door, it’s not going to be me and whoever shows up will probably start snooping around, if you catch my drift.”

Lance closed the door, scared shitless. He had to do something immediately. This situation had gotten out of hand and the studio was no help at all. “You fucking assholes,” Lance turned and screamed at the top of his lungs at Billy Batson and the band. “Shut up and quit playing now!” The music stopped abruptly and the band behaved from then on.

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HOME SWEET HOME

The third floor flat Lance rented on 4^th Avenue was owned by Rudy, a Jewish art dealer. Rudy was in his early fifties and specialized in Asian Art. His gallery sat on the bottom floor of the building and the floors above were each one giant room. Because of Rudy’s specialized field and the fact that he looked like Buddha, Lance and his friends called him Rudananda. Like Buddha, he was really in tune and glowing joy and beauty. He could have passed for an Eastern Indian. He also carried some very beautiful art pieces. Rudananda did all right for himself. His profits from the gallery enabled him to afford an ashram in Upstate New York where he had an organic bakery and distributed his baked goods to outlets around NYC.

The minute Lance moved into his flat, he started setting it up to paint. He asked John Veltry, a photographer from Juxtapose Magazine to come in and help. John, who was also a carpenter, plotted out the curvature in the hallway at the studio and reconstructed a replica on two walls in Lance’s seventy foot-long loft. Lance then split the 100-foot long canvas into two sections, stretched and stapled them to wooden battens nailed to the bottom and top of the walls.

Standing back as far as he could in the narrow room, Lance looked at the massive white canvas with a huge grin on his face. On one hand he was happy this was finally a reality. The smile turned to worry, though, when he realized all that needed to be done. It was overwhelming to say the least.

To make Lance's job a little easier, he talked the studio into renting an eight-foot long scaffold with wheels to paint the mural. Michael Jeffery also lent him Jimi’s stereo and albums that were stored at Electric Lady. Finally, Lance was ready to paint. Equipping the rolling scaffold with the stereo, music, lights, a very long extension cord, and cans of Liquitex paint, he could roll around the flat with ease to work on different sections.

Blasting Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s, “Hot Rats” over and over into the early morning hours, he never got sick of it once.

The tenant above Lance’s loft was a writer, quiet, didn't complain, and wasn't seen very often. Downstairs was a karate studio where they taught children and New York City Policemen how to defend themselves. One night, while painting away to the stereo full volume, there was a pounding on his door. Lance opened it and looked down to find a young karate student in full uniform.

“Sensei said you must turn the music off because it’s disturbing our class,” the young boy took a step back and said politely.

Lance didn’t expect such a request from this small boy. “Well, your sensei must understand that I’m working right now and I need my music,” he said, not taking the child seriously. Besides, Lance could hear every karate class, complete with yelling, kicking, and hitting. Any quick sounds heavily affected him when he painted details, but he never complained once to the "sensei," only because the music minimized the sounds below. This solution allowed him to work without disturbance.

The boy turned and left without a word. Minutes later, there was a second pounding on the door. Another student was sent to deliver the same message, “Sensei said you must turn the music off.”

Again, Lance turned the young boy away.

Quickly, there was a third knock on the door. Lance opened it, very frustrated at the constant interruptions. This nonsense was taking him away from making any progress. Lance looked down, “Tell your Sensei…”

Unexpectedly, Lance scanned up a very large, bald, black man's body. “You must turn off the music when I’m giving my classes,” ordered the Sensei. Before Lance had a chance to respond, Sensei added, “Come with me!”

Lance was dumbfounded and at a loss for words. He figured at this point, he better do what he's told or get the shit kicked out of him.

Entering the karate studio downstairs, Lance saw the class in progress. The brick wall of the studio was painted white with multiple racks to hold swords, numchucks, and other various weapons used in martial arts. “You must turn off the music during my classes,” ordered Sensei again. “Karate is a meditation and your loud music is disrupting us.”

Lance calmly gathered his thoughts. Being a Sagittarius, he always took the time to think before he spoke. Just like Sensei, he had a job to do. “Well, I’m here in New York City to paint a mural for Jimi Hendrix’ Electric Lady Studio. This is just as important to me, as your work is to you,” Lance explained in his usual calm, baritone voice.

Looking around, Lance stood in the middle of the studio, surrounded by the weapons, thirty mini-martial arts students, and a very insistent Sensei. He knew Sensei wasn’t going to hit him, but this was clearly not what the man wanted to hear.

“Look, we’re mature people,” Sensei explained, “and I’m sure we can work this out. What you’re doing is disrupting me. Hopefully, we can get to a level that we can both work with.”

Lance went back to his flat, got back to work, and kept the music down until the Sensei closed up shop for the night.

It took a while to get all the chinks worked out, but Lance promised to keep the base down and he put rubber mats under the speakers. That didn’t stop Sensei from coming up and asking him to turn the base down, but eventually, the two men called a truce and became good friends.

Sensei was also a musician. He played the violin and sang in small clubs around the Village. Every Sunday he practiced downstairs in his karate studio and Lance could hear him playing scales on the violin. That man was like a clock, completely regimented.

Walking from the studio to his loft late one night with a girl, Lance kept an eye open for dark corners. You always had to be aware of your surroundings after the sun went down in NYC. Crazy shit could happen right in front of you if you weren't careful.

Up ahead, Lance saw a large black man coming toward them from the other side of the street and went into protective mode. The last thing he wanted to happen was for his date to get hurt on his watch. The closer the man got, Lance intentionally kept his calm and didn’t show fear. Just when he was about to create a diversion to get away, Lance saw the man’s violin case. Then he saw his karate ghee. “Sensei! What’re you doing up so late?" Lance was never so relieved.