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."