I ended up being a designer, for lack of a better term. I wanted to be a “decorator,” and do fancy European interiors. But after touring the world as a young man and seeing the original palaces, my aspirations of giving them a run for their money just evaporated.

I remember thinking: “I should come up with something on my own.”

I abandoned all efforts to do “pretty” things and concentrated on my own modern – influenced attempt. I went on to have quite a creative career. I went on to do things that were beyond discovery; truly original. I got a good name established especially with young people and my peers who recognize that my work was original.


Stories from San Francisco in the 1960’s and early 1970’s

I wanted to tell you before we start that when you write this up, you’re going to substitute another name for my name. And we’re going to tell you more stories than you’ll get in twenty interviews!

We were on the subject of social diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis. The first story I’m going to tell you is about David and I when he was 21, and I was about 23. We were adventurous young men in San Francisco, and had no qualms about having three – ways. We were turning tricks left and right. David was turning tricks more than I was, because I had to work in the morning. I work from daylight tell 11:00 at night.

In those days you would go to a doctor and tell him you had something wrong. He went to the city client because they wouldn’t tell anyone about your condition. This was in the late fifties and early sixties. At this time the clinic was in an alley right off Mission street downtown. You could leave work, go into this alley on your lunch hour, and see everyone in town in that lobby!

You knew you’re going to get the penicillin shot; it was going to take you five or six days to be cured. They used a huge horse needle. So there you were sitting in the waiting room with people that you were just dying to make out with but everyone was tainted!

So we would say: “here’s my telephone number. Call me in a week.”

What made me think of this story was that every time I looked at him, David Travers had gonorrhea. I mean, he just lived with it. I didn’t even have to break out with that because I was exposed.

So when I went down to the clinic was simply said “David Travers.” And they said: “oh yes, we know David. Get in that room.”

I didn’t even have to give my name!

Then, “Prince Valiant” would come out. She looked like a horsy kind of woman. She had Bangs across her forehead. She had straight hair that was cut just like prince valiant in the comic book. Her name was Hutchens. They called her “Hutch.”

She would come out with his horse needle because the penicillin in those days was so thick that it would make a knot in your ass like a fist. After one of those shots, you couldn’t walk.

I had so many of those penicillin shots that I got a mean to it. I never had it again. I got immune to gonorrhea, I promise you. It just went away!


The Story of the Nude Beaches

It all started at Devil’s slide beach in the earliest of hippie days. They used to beg me to go down to the beach because I was a workaholic. Devil’s slide beach was a new experience for me because, first of all, it is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

In those days you used to walk by a house on the beach to get down to the path to the beach. Everyone took off their clothes; everyone was nude. They were smoking joints and taking acid, and frolicking and having sex behind the bushes. I had never gone around nude at a beach. It took about three hours of encouragement for me to finally take it all off.

Let me tell you, it became a habit. I loved nudity. From then on, I never owned a swim suit; it was nude beaches or nothing!

At one point there was a public hearing about nude beaches in California. It took place at three locations in California. They were considering making nudity legal. Of course I went to testify at the hearing at the Federal building.

When I arrived there might have been 30 or more people to testify or complain. There were three coastal commissioners at the hearing, plus the head of state beaches.

When it came my turn to speak I went up to the stand and said: “Look at me! I am beautiful! I am so beautiful from head to toe, and in the nude there is no flaw. God made me perfect. I love to display it and I was meant to display it. There is something to be said about going to a nude beach and having the assuredness of being the beautiful person that you were meant to be. There should be no hiding your beauty!”

After the hearing was close they declared that San Gregorio devil’s slide beach, the one in San Diego, Black Sand Beach, and the one in Santa Cruz were all going to be legal. Plus there was one Beach farther north.

That day, there were five beaches declared as legal nude beaches.

The only way to get a complaint about nudity was to get the ranger, filing a complaint, and physically escort the ranger to the nude person. He or she could then ask you to clothe yourself. That regulation made nudity possible, because no one was going to climb those hills, get a ranger and come back down.

We were assured of nudity from that day forward.