Richard remembered: Recollections of Brautigan #1

Shimmering snapshots of a tragic novelist

A regular contributor to the columns of Rock and the Beat Generation, ANTONIO PINEDA has a wealth of memories of the San Francisco scene in the 1960s. Previously he has penned vivid recreations for us of his relationships with poet Michael McClure and singer Jim Morrison, author Ken Kesey, guitarist Jerry Garcia and filmmaker Kenneth Anger.

Now he turns his attention to Richard Brautigan, one of the most important and inventive novelists of that city and that period, interweaving memoir, incident and conversation, including exchanges with the recently deceased writer Herb Gold and the very much alive Beat biographer Gerald Nicosia, in an evocative two-part portrait of this key Bay Area author.

Dive in to the opening section of a highly personal history in which a kaleidoscopic gallery of faces and places join a picaresque and compelling narrative…

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN was born in Tacoma, Washington. After a difficult childhood he grew to an impressive stature of 6’ 4” and was a high school basketball player, but he didn’t attend university. He moved to San Francisco in his early 20s, performed poetry readings and began penning novels. A Confederate General in Big Sur, written in Idaho in 1961, was neither successful nor well-received.

During the mid-1950s, Brautigan moved to San Francisco and, by early the next decade, became actively involved with the city’s underground. Richard spent time with the Diggers, a politically organized group fronted by Emmett Grogan, author of a 1972 autobiography Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps, and Peter Coyote, before he became a prominent Hollywood film actor.

The Diggers provided free food and clothing for the bohemian poor and fronted crash pads. Brautigan performed poetry readings at these occasions. I was hanging out at one such event in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park in late 1965.

Michael McClure made a stellar entrance accompaniment by Brautigan, who had attained a reputation as an acclaimed artist of the international countercultural community. McClure had befriended me and the protagonists of the Straight Theater.

In turn, we later collaborated and produced his poetry reading of Ghost Tantras and a theater play entitled The Blossom, part of his ‘Billy the Kid’ trilogy. He cut a dashing figure as he made his  way through the crowd, admired by the men, desired by the women.

Brautigan meanwhile was attired in monochromatic blue: blue jeans, blue denim workshirt and midnight blue navy pea-coat to fend off the San Francisco mist and fog. He possessed twinkling blue eyes, shoulder length blond hair and moustache and an ingratiating smile, affecting a black cowboy hat. He was a bohemian rendition of Gainsborough’s famous painting Blue Boy.

Michael approached me. ‘Tony this is my friend Richard Brautigan.‘

Richard appraised me with a curious look. ‘I’ve seen you before in North Beach at Gino and Carlo.’

‘I love that joint,  and the music on the jukebox at the Anxious Asp.’

Richard arched an inquisitive eyebrow. The jukebox at the Asp is real cool. The people there dance to the music. I dig that.’

McClure sported a black waistcoat, belted in the back, white shirt and jeans. He possessed rock star hair. He looked like Alain Delon in a spaghetti western, remarking, ‘I dig the big three: Donovan, Dylan and the Doors – rock star poets.’

Brautigan stroked his elegant moustache. ‘I love the I and Thou coffee shop. The poetry readings are brilliant.‘

I replied: ‘The Blue Unicorn coffee shop opposite Lowell High School has a groovy poetry and folk music scene. ‘

Brautigan was uplifting and cool. He and McClure were digging the scene. We only saw the public figure of Brautigan: charming and much admired by the women, possessed of a natural masculinity as basketball players are, a strange comet blazing through the cerulean skies. He was a true star in the firmament of the vibrant San Francisco scene. Sadly he was also a tragic alcoholic.

Thomas McGuane, the prolific novelist, screenwriter and short fiction writer described by Saul Bellow as ‘a language star’, came to Stanford University in 1966-67 under the auspices of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship. He rolled with Brautigan and the leading lights of the West Coast literary revolution. Richard’s novel of the time Trout Fishing in America went on to sell four million copies worldwide. McGuane’s father was also an alcoholic. McGuane said of Richard, ‘Brautigan was a gentle, troubled, deeply odd guy.’

On January 14th, 1967, the Human Be-In, aka the Gathering of the Tribes, celebrated the Dionysian mysteries at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park. A crown of 30,000 revelers assembled to hear Timothy Leary exhort the audience to ‘Turn on, Tune in and Drop out’.

Allen Ginsberg initiated the audience into the marvels of the New Age, chiming cymbals and temple bells as he declaimed Beat poetry. McClure strummed on his autoharp, which legend insists was gifted him by Bob Dylan, as he performed his magic poetry with an undoubted confidence reminiscent of a big screen actor.

Richard Brautigan shunned the stage to gambol and frolic in the audience. He was at ease with his constituency, who shared the love as he towered over and mingled with the crowd. The people identified with the this rangy, charismatic writer who eschewed the stage to strike it up with them: the poet was the Brechtian everyman to them as the sun shone its tinted shades of gold against a firmament of blue and clouds danced like sinuous serpents. 

Pictured above: Richard Brautigan

The camera cuts away and fast forwards to the future: A close up of Gerald Nicosia, poet and consummate Kerouac biographer in Memory Babe, his epic portrait of the Beat novelist, on the occasion of Neeli Cherkovski’s passing in March just gone.

I contend, ‘San Francisco is considered provincial by the New York literary establishment. Neeli is a class act. The lifestyle of a poet often precedes merit. There is a huge Bob Kaufman/Jack Micheline renaissance. They are naming alleys after them in North Beach as they did for Kerouac. As an exponent of San Francisco history, I dig it.’

Further, I add: ‘I was influenced by your Kerouac biography in my young bohemian days, when I was hanging out with McClure and Brautigan, producing their poetry readings with the Straight Theater crowd in Haight Ashbury.’

Nicosia comments regarding Richard: ‘Brautigan is as great a novelist as Hemingway. If Hemingway was the great American novelist of the 1920s, Brautigan was the great novelist of the 1960s. Both were unique stylists but Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize. Brautigan is mostly labeled as a “hippie writer”.’

He muses more. ‘If there is a Jack Micheline renaissance going on, I’m sure Jack must be laughing in heaven and telling the angels, “In my lifetime I had to bum meals off people; now they’re making me a renaissance!”’

I recall, ‘Once  upon a time I went to a Pocket Poets Red Cats reading at the Fillmore. Andre Voznesensky was like this movie star poet in a brown suit that matched his hair and flair. Yevegeny Yevtushenko read Babi Yar, his signature poem. I was as much overcome by the myths as the performers.’

Nicosia expands on the legacy of Cherkovski and his importance as a poet. ‘Neeli Cherkovski was a world class poet influenced by Pound, Rilke and Neruda. I sat in on Neeli’s poetry classes and he could discourse on the highest levels on world poetry. His reading in poetry was vast...I don’t think there was a poet he hadn’t read.

‘He should have been recognized as one of America’s great poets. Neeli’s recognition is conflicted by the East Coast/West Coast divide in American literature. East Coast poets, especially New York poets, are treated with the highest seriousness. I myself suffered from that.’

Nicosia reflects on the literary establishment. ‘I don’t think there was a greater American poet than Adrienne Rich, who spent most of her life in Santa Cruz. Her work is unbelievable, amazingly graceful and musical with a profound understanding of human nature. When she died, a dozen years ago, her passing went unnoticed. When a New York writer dies the Times blares it from the rooftops.’ 

Almost by way of a riposte, the New York Times celebrated Cherkovski in a tribute: ‘Neeli Cherkovski, poet who chronicled the Beat Generation, dies at 78.’

Nicosia concludes. ‘Every word that Neeli said or wrote came out of the San Francisco or California experience – the whole ethic about living in San Francisco. He wrote about San Francisco places and people. I remember Neeli telling me with his usual wry humor, that someday they would fit him in next to Coleridge – he loved to recite Kubla Khan – and Corso in the encyclopedia.’

I reflect on my friendship with Richard Brautigan which constituted a bridge between the Beat culture of the 1950s and the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. Written in 1961 but not published until 1967, Trout Fishing in America was a best seller and established him as a major writer of the New Fiction of the time. 

Pictured above: Brautigan’s 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America

Flashback to the site of the West Coast espresso culture, the Caffe Trieste: The cosy landmark is a North Beach institution, close by City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio bar, where Beat culture flourished and prospered. Trieste is where Francis Ford Coppola famously penned the screenplay of The Godfarher.

I enter and order a double espresso. Seated at a table by the window looking out over Grant Avenue is Herb Gold, poet and novelist, who settled In San Francisco in 1960. I sit next to him. He graciously enquired. ‘Are you a poet?’ 

His patronymic may be Gold but, with his well groomed silver hair and beard, twinkling eyes framed by eyeglasses, and rumpled jacket and tie, he was every inch the Silver Fox. I mentioned I had just returned from Spain where I studied flamenco dance, and that I was good friends with Brautigan and McClure. He nodded sagely. ‘I know Richard and Michael well. Do you read Garcia Lorca. ‘

I recite from the Romancero Gitano, a few lines from Lorca’s poem often sung by flamenco cantaors Verde. I mention we have a friend in common, rock star civil rights lawyer  J. Tony Serra and that his law office would be celebrating with a party on the weekend. Herb says J. Tony is a dear friend and he will be there.

I ascend the stairs to the law offices. Strategically located on top of Enrico’s on Broadway, another landmark of the Golden Age of North Beach, the premier venue for socializing and being seen by cafe society, a venue which, sadly, finally closed in 2006.

J. Tony, the ponytailed Stanford graduate enjoyed the stature shared by William Kunstler the famed New York civil rights lawyer. J. Tony’s brother was the internationally acclaimed New York sculptor Richard Serra (who only died in spring of this year). The party was studded with swanning socialites, rockers, San Francisco political families and pretty people. 

J. Tony and his posse were in deep conversation with Herb Gold. Tony declared: ‘Herb is our neighbor. He lives on Telegraph Hill. He’s just published a new book.’

Herb addressed his audience of swells and rebels. ‘The title is Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love and Strong Coffee Meet,’ he explained. The author, of Russian-Jewish descent, entranced his audience. ‘By the way poet Agneta Falk is hosting a poetry reading at the law offices. I understand her partner the poet Jack Hirschman will drop by.’

Turning to me, J. Tony said: ‘I can get you a slot to read your poetry after Agneta. You know, don’t you, that Jack Hirschman taught a creative writing class in Los Angeles which the young Jim Morrison attended in his salad days.’

My mind returns to an encounter with Richard Brautigan at one of his favorite watering holes long ago. I stalk the starry midnight streets of North Beach and repair to Gino and Carlo for a nightcap. The classic Italian sports bar and lounge, established in 1942, is a cosy location known for its friendly ambiance.

Brautigan is lounging at the bar. He graciously offers to toast me for a drink. I say, ‘Richard thanks for that brilliant impromptu reading you performed at the Straight Theater.’

Richard was wearing blue jeans, a denim work shirt and dark leather boots. ‘I love your Haight Ashbury crowd at the Straight. I enjoyed McClure’s one-act about Billy the Kid, The Blossom, and the Antonin Artaud mimodrama in which you played the Harlequin.’

Poets, cineastes and just plain folk were regulars at Gino and Carlo. Francis Ford Coppola enjoyed an aperitif there. Brautigan added, ‘I was in the process of writing a new poem. Apple Records just contacted me. They’re going to record my poetry for the record label. It’s to be held at a studio South of Market. Young poets will be invited to read some of my poems. Drop by Tony.’

Editor’s note: The second part of Antonio Pineda’s memories of Richard Brautigan will appear in the pages of Rock and the Beat Generation in the near future. In the meantime, he recalls the novelist in the work of verse below which pays a deeply felt tribute to his old friend