I was working at Playland At The Beach in San Francisco. I was looking around for what job I was going to get into. I worked in the mail department at the post office for a while. I bounced around not knowing what I really wanted to do. I was trying to find myself.

Playland At The Beach was near the Great Highway, on the ocean, next to the Cliff House. I became an attendant on the balloon game.

I thought: “Of all stupid things, me, on the balloon game!”

But if you give me something, even if I don’t know a damned thing about it, I will learn. I won’t give up.

I created little gimmicks in the balloon game such as a balloon within another balloon. I put it up and told people: “if you pop a balloon that has a smaller balloon inside of it then I give you ten extra points.”

I told people that they got six darts for a quarter, and I was making a fortune! So I had posters all over that said different things and one of them was: “Blessed are the suckers, for they shall be taken.”

People used to come up and complain: “I lost a dollar on that game.”

I told them: “if you stick around, you’ll lose $5.00, you sucker!”


I Polish my Acting Skills at the Balloon Game

I used to do impersonations. I would jump up on top of the counter, which you’re not supposed to do.

I did Jimmy Cagney: “Oh you rats, you dirty rats. You come on over and play this game and you know what you’re gonna get! I’m gonna give it to you right in the back!”

Then I would do Rhett Butler: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn whether you play this game or not. Every sucker in the world comes here and they always end up gone with the wind!”

Eventually the balloon game went from nothing to one of the biggest games on the midway.

And I Learn How to Deal with Some Tough Customers

One day the park was filled with people. I used to go behind the back of the stall and put balloons on the walls so that they could be spun around. When one side was all popped out we’d turn it around and put the fresh balloons facing the audience.

My friend “Pipes” was there at the game with me. It was a good holiday, and we were making lots of money. One time, we heard a lot of screaming so the first thing I did was grab a balloon and pop it. That got everyone’s attention on me.

I walked slowly forward, like death himself, and said: “Who woke me up? I was sleeping in the back. I’m trying to goof off, and I don’t like anyone messing around when I’m goofing off!”

So I asked Pipes what happened.

Pipes said: “This fellow came over and put a quarter down and I gave him six darts. Then he decided he didn’t wanna play, and he took his quarter back, but I had already run up the sale.”

The guy started yelling at us: “you mother f_____r.”

I said: “I don’t know your mother and I’ve never done what you’re suggesting.”

It stopped him in his tracks. He told me that he wanted his quarter back or he would come across the counter and take care of me.

I told him: “You come across the counter, because you’re a good looking woman, and I’m your pimp.”

He said: “I’m a guy!”

I said: “You’re cute as hell and I gonna give you back to nobody; you’re all mine!”

Eventually a cop came over. He came up with a simple solution and that was give the money from the next game to this guy, and everyone comes out ahead.

I hated it but it was logical.

So the guy said: “I want my money back now.”

So I gave the guy back 25¢ IN PENNIES! I threw them on the ground and he was there picking up all these pennies. He looked up and said: “I’m going to see you later.”

I said: “Look well upon this face, because it’s the last one you’re going to see before you go into hell.”

All of a sudden I became well known. I was the ace.


I Join the Cast of Colorful Carnival Characters

At the carnival we used to use a lot of nicknames. If there were guys around who were making sure that we were doing things right, we’d call them spotters. If there was a guy who was the boss would call him Murphy. The assistant to the boss we called little Murphy.

One time, big Murphy came walking by. I had my clay statues for the people who won at the balloon game. They were all in sexual positions. Murphy walked by, saw the stuff and kept walking. I saw him a little ways down the road, and he was cracking up. He was laughing.


I Enlist Pretty Girls to Help My Sales Efforts

I became popular enough that I could get away with anything. I used to bring young girls over there and ask them if they would like to hustle for me.
They asked me what I wanted them to do.

I told them to shake their rear end back and forth and say: “I just love to play balloons!”

One time, I taught a girl how to go back and forth. She wasn’t walking right. When I got her walking right, we were making money hand-over-fist.

The guy in the stand beside me, who ran the cigarette wheel, was out of jail and into drugs. He used to call me “Goat,” because I was a Capricorn.
He told me: “Hey Goat, you’re doing everything right except for one thing.”

I said: “What’s that?”

He told me: “You gotta learn how to steal, Goat. Life is nothing but one big stealing game. We’re all on borrowed time. We borrow ideas from each other and claim that they were our own. Learn how to steal, man, and do it good because anyone who’s ever made it big in the world, from Christopher Columbus to the president of the United States, stole.”

I said: “What do I do?”

He said: “Get yourself a dollar. They play your game. Ring up 50¢ and keep 50¢ for yourself.”

From then on I was pocketing money like crazy. I learned from this guy, called Rick, how to steal. That was part of my act. All these guys around me were like Damon Runyon characters.

There was Mike the Lip. He had a cleft lip. He always had sexy women around him because he could do impressions of people. He even did impressions of himself by putting his hands all over his body when he turned his back. They all loved him

Then there was “Eddy the Back.” His real name was Eddy LeBeck, and he had a hunchback. We all felt sorry Eddy.

My game was the balloon game; next door was the cigarette game, and then came Eddy. In his game, you threw a baseball and knocked down some pins. He had to run back and forth, and here he was with his poor old hunchback..

Everyone felt sorry for him, and would always loan him money. One day, he took off and never came back. He owed hundreds of dollars to all these people.

They asked me how much he took from me. I told them: “Nothing!”

They were amazed, but I said that he only took money from people he liked. Everyone cracked up

I was in the carnival job for about a year and I really enjoyed it.


A Jealous Wife Kills My Best Friend

I am writing a novel about something that happened to me at Playland. There was a guy there named Harry Childs. That’s not his real name. He was a sexy guy, and always had a lot of women around him. He looked like buddy Holly. The women adored Harry.

Harry was an undercover cop who used to drop by to see me from time to time. Eventually I got into sexual encounters with women, because Harry knew them all.

I went with Harry on a couple of cases. One morning I woke up, turned on the radio, and heard the news report that a cop had been killed early this morning. His name was Harry.

I said: “Holy cow, that’s my best buddy!”

It was 1961 and Harry’s death was the news of the day. My best friend had been murdered by his own wife. I went back to his place years later, walked up the stairs where Harry had fallen down after being shot twice.

What he had done was called her up one night and told her that he was going to pick her up and take her out for the evening. So he came home, opened the door, walked inside where it was all dark. Two shots go off; one hit him in the chest, the other in the arm. He turned around without saying a word, walked down the stairs, then dropped dead at the landing.

It was his wife who was sitting there in a chair in the dark with a gun in her hand.


Premeditated Murder, and She Walks!

She got away with it eventually due to the fact that he was abusive to her. She had a whole hour where she could’ve called the cops but she didn’t. She had a whole hour where she could have left but she didn’t. She was waiting there in the dark, and that was premeditated murder.

I thought it was wrong; she had killed my best friend. I went to the funeral at the cemetery in San Bruno. The wife of course didn’t show up.

She said he was abusive, and he wasn’t. He was a joker who liked to play around. He was the best good friend I ever had. He pushed the envelope too far.

I wanted to say all this but I couldn’t. My name would be in the newspapers and my mom, dad, and sister would see it. I might have to go before the press, television, radio. I couldn’t reveal what she was really like

I saw it, and I thought it was wrong. I never got called as a witness; I think they didn’t know enough about me. It was a sad situation, but that was the way it was.


At Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel: Working With Johnny Mathis, Lorne Green, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Other Stars

In the sixties I worked in newspapers, advertising. During the nineteen sixties, the Ambassador Hotel was the biggest hotel in Hollywood. All the stars went there.

We had names for all the stars.

Johnny Mathis: “Leave him alone.”

“Why?”

“Because he likes men.”

I was the valet at the hotel. My friend Rick said: “Learn to pick pockets.”

He said: “People who are rich usually have drugs, and they’re not going to tell anyone they’ve had drugs stolen from them.”

I wore a black outfit with a black tie and a white coat.

The guy from Bonanza, Lorne Green, was from Canada. He used to be in the hotel, and they called him the “high diver.”

I asked: “Why did you call him the high diver?”


The “High Diver:” A Lousy Tipper

They told me it was because he would have a room on the fourth or fifth floor. He was known for being a lousy tipper.

He would call up and say: “Bring up my laundry.” When they got to his room, he wouldn’t be there! He would be down in the swimming pool.

So word got around that if you got a call from Lorne Green, to call somebody in the room immediately next to him and make sure he was there.

But it never worked. Every time we got there, he was gone! We figure he made a phone call from somewhere else, then immediately went to the swimming pool!

We used to joke that the only way he could do this would be to dive off the balcony and hit the pool below. So we called him the high diver.


The “Bird Dogs” Cheat Us

Then there was Sammy Davis Jr. I’ll never forget him. I never met the man himself, but I met his “bird dogs.” Bird dogs are like bodyguards, public relations people, and others.

People don’t realize it but when you become a celebrity you have to learn how to keep people away from you. You need a publicist, bodyguards.

We were told that Sammy Davis Jr. was going to be at the hotel for a week or so, and that we would be paid off. We thought they would flip out about five bucks for each of us, which back in the sixties was pretty good money. By the end of the week we were hoping for 25 or 50 bucks.

At the end of the week, Sammy Davis was gone, and we didn’t get a cent. The bird dogs pocketed the money themselves.

Then there were big guys too. In one movie Frank Sinatra, played a singer who went up against the mob and got his throat cut. It was a movie with Jerry Lewis.

So Jerry was at the hotel and I went up there to take care of his clothes. He was walking around drunk as hell, and kidding, because he was a comedian.

He said: “Hey kid, come here.”

He slipped me five bucks which was really good money back then.

Finally, I decide to Settle Down

But my mom and dad would say: “what are you doing with your life? You went to Playland, your best friend got murdered, and now you’re in Hollywood. What are you going to do?”

So I decided to settle down in the nineteen sixties to work for newspapers and their advertising agencies. I also worked on magazines called Sea and Pacific Motorboats. I did the art work, the layout.

Before that I was at a public relations firm working for universities and colleges. I did that from 62 to 64. From 61 to 62 I worked at a newspaper called the Sunnyvale daily standard. I did advertising, office work, art work and things like that.

…And Teach High School English

Eventually I became a high school English teacher. I worked at Walter Junior High for one year, and then at Irvington High School. I did these jobs from 1969 through 1991. I love to work with kids.

It took me a long time to figure this out, but my discovery was this: “Don’t teach.” If you let them grow up in front of the class, they learn more that way. I let them become teacher for a day. I had them follow a person throughout the day: at work, in the cafeteria, at home. I had them write up the life story of their subject and ascribe what this person was like at their age.

Eventually they even started their own magazine called Experience Magazine. I asked the kids why they picked the name Experience Magazine and they said: “because life is nothing more than a series of experiences.”

I had an artist named Barbara Bentley draw a mom and her little kid. And the kid was saying: “Mommy, Mommy is there really a Richard Nixon?”

The principal found out about this and brought us both in. Barbara blames me, and I blamed her we were both acting like a couple of kids.

So we were instructed not to make anything look political, so instead of that I had them say: “Mommy, Mommy is there really a Santa Claus?” but I made the Santa Claus look like Richard Nixon!

We sent a copy to Richard Nixon. They sent a thing back saying: “We believe in education.”

For the magazine we turned the classroom gossips into reporters. Then we had people who were jokers and would write humor columns.

Our magazine became more popular than the school newspaper. I learned more from working with the kids than I did anywhere else. 

I brought all kinds of people to the class: an outlaw, a cop. One time I brought in a group of musicians called “the Stark Naked Car Thieves.” They got the name from the Steve Allen comedy skit.