FROM THE COMMUNE TO GEORGE THE BEAST

The author Christine, 1964

We took our irresponsibility seriously and made a full time job of it. I lived in the commune several months and never once went shopping, cooked, washed clothes or cleaned house – I slept on a pile of second hand clothes in the middle bedroom. On waking up in the morning, I chose today’s ridiculous outfit from the old clothes and joined the others in the living room where we decided what we would do today – go to the park? The waterfront? North Beach? Nobody had a watch or an agenda – Drugs or alcohol were not allowed in this particular commune, and it was really pretty idyllic – all we did was play spontaneously.
Tom the cartoonist was the clown of the bunch. He made up an endless improvised poem, The Elf on the Shelf – and a couple of times a week he would surprise us by starting to recite from some ridiculous position, curled up high on a shelf, or on top of a door.
We were a philosophy commune. Once a week Hal and Carol dutifully rounded us all up and marched us off to listen to a philosopher in North Beach, who read to us from Kalil Gibran. Our philosopher had a gray beard and had two wives. He explained to us that he was already married when he fell in love with another woman. Rather than break the heart of his first wife by divorcing her, he simply moved the second woman in. “Well, it’s fme with us,” they said. “We’re all happy.” But I imagined that under the surface it was rather tragic, I thought I could perceive a faint haunted look in the first wife. To miss the weekley visit was to risk the frowns of the otherwise very receding commune leaders. But it was in North Beach I first met George the Beast, who was spoken of in the commune in hushed tones – he was a good friend of Tom’s. George got his name from his loud voice, obstreperous manner and his affection for Aleister Crowley – a writer of somewhat demonic reputation. George was not allowed to come into the commune because he used drugs.
Patti and I stayed behind in North Beach after a session with the philosopher. I could hear George’s loud voice a block away and Patti and I ran down and introduced ourselves to him. George and I hit it off right away and started an animated conversation. I met him every day after that in North Beach, and one day came back to the commune with him, where we were greeted by a stem Carol who informed me that George was not welcome here. If I was friends with him I would have to leave – so I packed up a few pathetic garments and books and moved in with George.

George was only a few years older than me – early twenties – but seemed so much older. He was very tall, 6 foot 4, with a shaggy mane of light brown hair. But for all his fierce reputation he was a quiet spoken at home, intellectual, and sometimes he read all day. He was a bit abrupt and unsentimental but a peaceable and sharing partner – we were definitely flower children. He had been to New York and because of his gregarious nature, intellect and wild man act had been easily accepted by the lower East Village crowd that circulated around Allen Ginsberg. He came back to San Francisco with wild tales of the mysterious magicians, which so intrigued me I eventually went to N.Y. to see for myself.

GOLDEN ASS coffeehouse to The Commune

Eternal the Seasons

THE GOLDEN ASS coffeehouse 1963
At the coffeehouse I had been dating Glen’s middle son Peter, a big redheaded boy who drove a motorcycle.
We rode around town a lot together. But there was another Peter, a dark haired young poet who inadvertently played a role in a major change in my life. He was a mild mannered and sweet young man with romantic good looks. He had heard that Lyndia and I had driven one weekend all the way to San Francisco and back.
He made me an offer – if I would go with him to San Francisco in my car, he would pay for the gas. He explained that he had friends up there he wanted to see who lived in a commune. He told me he would introduce me to them.
They were friendly and we could stay there for a few days. It was summer after my fIrst year of college and that year of college had gone badly. I was ready for a trip and this sounded good. I was still living with my parents, and was 18. I doubt I discussed this trip with them. Peter and I started up to San Francisco on a Saturday.
This fun trip, this lark was to be decisive in my life. When we arrived, Peter introduced me to the people in the commune, who knew George The Beast in North Beach, who knew people in New York, who came to visit George, who took me to New York, who introduced me to Hubert Huncke, the writer in the East Side, but I’m getting ahead of myself ….
The commune was in an upstairs flat, in an old brown wooden building on the comer of Webster and O’Farrell, just one block from the Black district of San Francisco – the Fillmore district. The flat was over a Chinese laundry and grocery, and was very large, stretching the entire length of the building, and had seven or eight rooms. Most of the rooms were devoid of furniture, with brown, worn wooden floors and plain aged plaster walls. There was a desk and cabinet in the bay window on the north end of the flat, where an old boyfriend photographer from high school took a photo of me, which I still have.
Peter introduced me to Carol and Hal, who were the heads of the commune. They paid rent somehow, for all the rest of the helpless characters there. They were actually very retiring, and stayed somewhat in the background, but the day I arrived they greeted me very warmly and a few days later,invited me to move into the commune. I accepted and never returned to my family home.
Hal and Carol were in their mid 20’s – Carol had long light brown hair and a softly rounded face somewhere between pretty and plain – she tended to wear long peasant skirts. Hal was handsome and well built, a muscle builder by profession. I believe that’s how they made their living, promoting and instructing the isometrics method of building muscle without weight lifting, by a kind of natural resistance – flexing.
The other members of the commune were Rick, with his adorable good looks and curly blond hair, Tom, a cartoonist, homely and funny, with a hooked nose and short dark hair. There was Patti, only 16, who escaped an alcoholic mother by marrying Dennis, a slight and frail poet. Dennis handed me a poem of his called “Autumn Clock” hand written in elegant script, framed.
The word “beatnik” was still being used, but we were actually a younger generation. In the mid-sixties, we were actually the fIrst hippies. The whole point of the 60’s was a rebellion against the “Establishment” – and all it required. We refused the college education and dropped out – the dull corporate jobs for men, the well-ironed frock of the housewife – the over-cleaned house and the rigid 50’s fashions: we dumped all of it. The Beatnik uniform was still the black turtleneck sweater, faded jeans, and sandals. The sandals of choice were hand made Greek style, which consisted of a cutout leather bottom, with long thongs tying criss-cross up the ankles and calves. We picked up heaps of discarded clothing and piled them up in the bedrooms. On some days we would pick out outrageous outfIts of mismatched Bermuda shorts, bright shirts, trailing scarves, bandanas and so on, and go parading up the streets of San Francisco, six or seven of us. The tourists and residents would goggle at us, whispering “look, Beatniks”! We got such a kick out of it. Sometimes we would see another crazy troupe walking up the opposite side of the street, and we would say, “It’s the Walnut Street Commune!” or whatever, and wave like crazy. We had all come from middle class and upper middle class homes where cleanliness is stressed. But in our commune, the rules were broken. We rebelled. The bathtub was used as a storage bin. Nothing was ever cleaned or washed. Tom, the resident cartoonist, never washed his feet, which as a result had turned black. This was his joke on the world.

THE GOLDEN ASS pursuing the Beatniks

1962 HIGH SCHOOL-Golden Ass and the Beatniks
Lyndia was my very best friend at that time, at Narbonne high school. She was petite and smart mouthed, with a pixie mop of red hair. My family lived in the exclusive Portuguese Bend Club on the shore of the Palos Verdes peninsula, and her family lived in a poor neighborhood in Torrance, but it didn’t matter to us what our parents had, we were in high school and having fun. We would both lie to our parents about where we were, and stay out all night driving around, going to surfer parties in Hermosa and Redondo Beach.

1959 – At that time my mother had showed me an article in a newspaper about Beatniks in San Francisco. “Just look at that!” she said scornfully rapping on the news photo. ‘They’re just not clean. They don’t use any elbow grease, that’s their problem. They don’t work! What bums!” I looked at the photo. And I saw the most wonderful people I had ever seen. The women had long, long hair; everyone was dressed in black, and was sitting on the floor of an artist’s studio, listening to a poet read his work.
Paradise! I couldn’t imagine anything more exciting, but I was only fifteen. My whole fantasy became somehow escaping my neighborhood and family and making my way to San Francisco. Maybe I could hike on the Northern California beach to San Francisco. Maybe I could save up money for bus fare – wear a disguise, get a wig and makeup – look old, anything! But I was a meek child, school and family held on to me for several years.

1962 – Lyndia came up with a mysterious silver roll of pills wrapped in foil, like lifesavers candy. “Pep pills,” she said, “from Tijuana.” We had no idea at the time what these were, but lots of kids used them, and it was fun to stay awake all night. We also occasionally drank wine. We drove down to San Pedro, the small waterfront town, where the back street liquor stores would sell wine to alcoholics, to kids, to anyone. We were cruising a narrow street, lined with dingy shops, mostly closed, when Lyndia started pounding me on the shoulder and hollering, “Look at that sign! It says The Golden Ass! I can’t believe it!” “No,” I said, “they can’t say that!” “Yes they can! Look! Look!” And indeed a small sign on a hinge stood out from a wall, with a little painting of a yellow donkey and arty hand lettering – The Golden Ass. We parked and walked over to the shop and pressed our faces against a grimy window. “It’s a coffeehouse,” we agreed. “Beatniks!” It was the first time either of us had seen such a thing. Suddenly a man with gray hair, in a blue work shirt and jeans popped out. “We’re closed now, but if you’d like to come back tonight we’re open at eight.” He had a most friendly manner and smile that attracted us immediately. Lyndia and I thanked him and we ran away twittering. “Real beatniks, he said we could come! Yeah! Let’s go tonight!”
Lyndia and I arrived at The Golden Ass that evening a little after eight. The coffeehouse was located in a storefront, which was long and narrow from front to back. Little had been done to it. A rough wood floor, aging white plaster wall, a crude wooden stage at the end, a few chairs and tables. That was alL We sat eagerly on benches and were greeted in a friendly manner by several other patrons. Glen rushed over and enthusiastically welcomed us and introduced us around. His name was Glen Bye, and he had three big redheaded sons. Then there was Sylvia, the quiet intense beatnik woman, with the long dark brown hair and black sweater and pants. She was the girlfriend of the oldest Bye brother, who we never got to know very well, as he was older and quite withdrawn. There was an assortment of poets and artists, and Lyndia and I began to go there frequently. The entertainment consisted of performances by the regular patrons, and whoever was passing through town.
Glen was sometimes absent because he was also the founder of a communal farm in Mexico. Lyndia and I were both still in high school, and we were both enrolled in the Modern Dance course instead of Gym for several years. I remember how limber I was then, and had dancers muscles in my legs. I could touch the floor with my elbows, leaning forward. The instructor of the course was Mrs. Richardson, but all the girls called her Teach, and she was the most warm-hearted and adored teacher on campus. She was a stocky older woman, with short, curly white hair, combed back on the sides. She always wore her white gym shirt and shorts and white tennis shoes, but the girls wore black tights and leotards. We worked out hard daily, stretching, leaping, and bounding barefoot around the polished wooden floor of the gym.
In the coffeehouse there were some very strange performances indeed, including one man who pushed needles through his cheeks and arms. Lyndia and I decided to use our modem dance skills to present a dance on stage, and chose the popular jazz piece, Peter Gunn. We worked for weeks on the choreography, included all our best stretches and bends, limited by the tiny stage. But it went over well, and we were much applauded. At the age of seventeen, we were the youngest people there, except for Glen’s youngest redheaded son, probably fifteen. Everybody else was in their twenties or thirties.We brought another friend of ours, an intellectual and plain girl, and surprisingly she got involved with an older artist, who was dour and attractive. I felt uncomfortable about him. Robin seemed too nice and bright for him, but she was lonely and never had a serious boyfriend before. She was surprised that such a romantic character would be interested in her.

1964 Our ON THE ROAD, trip to New York

The author Christine, 1964

Crash in the desert, blowing up the kitchen
Actually it all started with my first old man in San Francisco, George The Beast. He was the first person to tell me about the Magicians in New York. He told me wild tales of the speed addicted tricksters and their powers of teleportation. That’s when I first met Christopher (not my ex-husband Christopher). He was a friend of George’s – he said he was driving to New York and invited me along. I accepted and George was pissed. The plan was we would drive to Austin first and pick up the Texas Couple, a man and his wife who were friends of his. We were traveling with a young Indian guy who was also on speed – he was driving the car through the Utah desert. I was lying on the back seat coming down with hepatitis. I fell asleep and awoke when the car tumbled into a ravine, I looked out, groggy and puzzled, at the blazing desert seemingly at a strange angle to the car. The three of us crawled out of the car unharmed and took shelter from the burning sun under the shade of a large overhanging rock, like lizards. There was no one anywhere, no cars, no traffic. After what seemed like a long time an old farmer with a battered truck happened by and towed the car out of the ravine and we continued on our way. We arrived at the Texas Couple’s apartment in Austin, and the Indian guy split. The Couple said they knew an old Indian woman who sold peyote we drove to the countryside and she sold us a cloth sackful for ten dollars. At this point I still had yellow eyes and a fever from the hep.

The Couple wanted to process peyote into mescaline and had trays of chemicals sitting in the kitchen – mainly ether. We cut the peyote into cubes and swallowed it with coca-cola. It was so bitter it burned the mouth and stomach and caused nausea. We took turns sitting in each other’s stomachs to prevent throwing it up.
The next day we drove to a remote swimming hole in the hills – a beautiful natural deep pond with large overhanging boulders high enough to dive fifteen feet into the water. We took more peyote and splashed and dove in the beautiful wilderness waterhole for hours. As we left the waterhole I felt excellent and the next day the hep was absolutely and entirely gone – cured.
Back in Austin the first batch of mescaline was ready and Christopher and I went out on a rollicking walk on quiet Austin streets at night, high on ether and mescaline, gawking at the Moonlight Towers – those strange metal towers hundreds of feet high with a ring of huge blue-white floodlights at the top, meant to illuminate Austin with moonlike light, keeping the streets safe and free of drug addicts.
As we started back to the apartment we heard sirens coming toward us. There was a big red fire truck parked in front of the apartment, and a couple of squad cars. The couple was milling around with the curious bystanders trying to look innocent. They explained to us that something had sparked off the trays of ether and blew up the kitchen.
The lady downstairs was hollering that water from the fIfe hoses had leaked down through the ceiling and soaked her kitchen. The fIfe chief was storming around hollering, “Does anybody know what happened here?” Christopher, the couple and I piled into the old car which was parked in the street and went to New York.

THE SIXTIES- Peter, News of Ellen, Ginsburg

The author Christine, 1964

PETER
I was at a party on the lower east side of New York, it was summer of 1964, I was still fairly new on the New York scene. There were a lot of literary types there, Alan Ginsburgs crowd, I spotted a gorgeous guy, blonde and so good looking he could have been a model. I was instantly attracted, and I sidled up next to him on the couch. We started to have a very nice conversation, when Alan entered the room. He kept walking back and forth, and glaring at me. I got up and pulled the hostess aside and asked her what was the matter with Alan, I barely knew him. She laughed and said the blonde man was Alan’s boyfriend, Peter Orlovsky.

I was living in Boulder Colorado in the early 80’s, and occasionally attended events at Naropa University, located on the outdoor mall, a very attractive brick street, no cars allowed, lined on both sides with nice shops and buildings, always something going on there, street musicians and performers. I listened to Alan and other luminaries reading poetry at Naropa.
I was walking down the street there and saw a most intriguing man, good looking older man with long, long grey hair, pulled back in a pony tail. I had seen him several times before. Smitten with curiosity, I followed him to see where he was going. He turned into a building across the street from Naropa. At that moment I ran into a girl I knew from poetry readings. She told me there was a party upstairs in that building, and invited me to go on up with her. Upstairs I pointed out the man to her, and asked her who he was, and she said “Oh, that’s Peter Orlovsky”. At that moment Alan arrived. I shrugged and gave up. I sat next to Alan and asked him if he had any news about Bill Heine and Ellen. “You knew them from New York?”, he said, a bit surprised. I said yes, but I hadn’t been there for a long time. “Ellen died, 6 years ago” he said. I must have looked shocked, and he started apologizing, very concerned, asking me if I was close to them. He seemed very kind. I was so startled I forgot to ask what she died of.

GAYTON
1965 Huncke and I were spending the afternoon together, he said he would take me to the apartment of a friend of his called Gayton. My old man in San Francisco, George the Beast, had told me Gayton had a terrible reputation, that he was known as Ground Glass Gayton, because he sold meth with ground glass in it to give it sparkle, thus to resemble the more expensive crystal meth. I thought this might be just a wild tale, urban myth, nonetheless I accompanied Huncke to meet Gayton. They were middle aged at this time, I was 19. Once there, they had a short conference, and Huncke told me to wait there, he needed to go on a short trip. I felt like he left Gayton to babysit me. This apartment was dark, and had no furniture. I waited uncomfortably, as Gayton didn’t seem to want anything to do with this young west coast hippie, so I sat on the floor against a wall. Gayton was standing near the left wall, and suddenly, in less than a blink, he was standing in the right side of the room. I was so startled I screamed. He huffed out of the room in disgust. When Huncke returned, Gayton said to him, “I thought you said she was cool”.

1970 The last time I saw Bill and Ellen was walking down the street in Haight Ashbury. I was surprised to see these New Yorkers, we stopped and talked for a little while, they looked pretty well. They told me a little about leaving New York, traveling around. I’m not sure what year that was. I returned from Seattle in 1969, was in San Francisco a couple of years, it was maybe 1970, they were together, I don’t know if they were still together when she died.

The author Christine, 1964

BILL AND ELLEN New York 1964

The author Christine

I first met Bill Heine shortly after arriving in New York for the first time, I had nothing, nowhere to go. Huncke had brought me to Bills house, and there I stayed, I virtually moved in. I was told Bill was a magician, that in the place that he had lived, he had attracted so much attention, the house was constantly crowded with people hoping to see him do some magic. Bill got tired of the crowds and moved here to this apartment, to be left alone, have some privacy. It was on the lower east side, on the ground floor, sparsely furnished, just a couch and coffe table, and a table for his art. He carried a little wooden flute in his waistband, otherwise I was unaware of his musical talents. It really was quiet, just a few of his friends. Someone brought a woman called Ellen, and her boyfriend, a sailor. She started staying with us, with her charming 4 year old daughter. She was a curvy brunette wirh a pretty round baby face, just so opposite from me, a tall thin blonde. She told us she wanted to get away from the boyfriend, So Bill told her she could move in. Everybody got high, a lot. Nobody worked, that I knew of. That’s when I became aware of his strange abilities. He really was a magician, and it bugs me when anyone calls him a black magician, because he would never hurt anyone with his magic. Black magic is for casting spells to do someone some harm. He only intended to entertain. He was an intense guy, but I was never afraid of him. On the contrary, both Ellen and I had a crush on him.I don’t know how long it was, maybe 6 weeks, he started sleeping with Ellen. One day Joplin was in the house, Ellen and I were sitting on the couch. She stood up off the couch, her skirt slid up, revealing a mass of bruises on her thighs. I shot Heine a dirty look, I had heard her screaming from the bedroom. But she was very sexy and sultry at that moment. I realized that he had chosen her, and it started to feel kind of crowded around there. Yes, I was knew he was attracted to me, that there was a strong mental bond, to but he had to choose, and he blew up and drove me out. I got a cheap hotel room and started living there. He found out where I was and came after me. That was the only time we slept together. I continued to visit there, at his apartment, I was still welcome, I would show up with Huncke a lot, but I left with the other guests.

Herbert Huncke Reader

Herbert Huncke Reader

The pic is the cover of Herbert Huncke’s book. I was in the Mission Viejo public library bookstore in Southerm California (I only lived a block from there) when I was amazed to find the book. How did this get here? It is apparently some kind of preliminary edition of Huncke’s book, which the publisher must have donated to the library. I bought it for a couple of bucks. I had lost touch and assumed he must have died long ago, and was very disappointed to learn that he had died only a year earlier, and now I was too late.

THE MAGICIANS 1964 and 1994

Christine 1964

THE MAGICIANS 1994
I kept dreaming I was trying to get back to New York to find Bill Heine again …. driving and driving across the countryside down miles of narrow highway, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio, flat plains unfolding into farmland, and finally arrive at the city’s spiked skyline, driven by that odd intense love I always felt for him.
Long ago, returning to San Francisco from New York, I carried a large piece of red satin I brought in some obscure shop of second hand treasures because it reminded me of him. My St. Francis of the streets, Bill Heine, junkie saint, who healed me once. If I were to find Ellen’s daughter today, what would I tell her? The little girl was a casualty of love, of the magicians of the New York streets, how could the girl not hate Bill, who commanded Ellen to leave her child behind, and Ellen took her by her little hand at the age of four and gave her away to state authorities.
In one dream I cross the bridge to New York, heart pounding, and take a room in a large ramshackle old hotel and hit the streets searching for Heine, dreaming this all in the mid nineties, thirty years after I had last seen him.
1964 – New York
Bill and Joplin came into the room together – I was astounded – this was the first time I had seen the legendary master magician, Joplin, Bill’s body language told me and Ellen to sit quietly, not approach, not interrupt. Joplin was an ex-Rabbi, and like Bill, was an amphetamine user. They spoke to each other in soft voices and walked across the room, and as they walked, banging and popping noises came out of the air around them, they had the magical ability to create noises out of thin air.

Running, thru the park…The Green Machine was screaming in my mind, incessant shrieks, whispers, words, I thought it was the minds of the New York Magicians. I found a piece of machinery on the ground in an industrial park, it was painted green, faded, chipped. I knew it, I knew it, it’s the Green Machine. But maybe the Green Machine came from Vietnam, where American soldiers are slogging through a swamp, armaments held high overhead, through green rotting jungles, then there is the scream and whine of bullets, a sudden attack, by something elusive and invisible as spirits.

ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK 1964

(Note; I think this was 1964. How I got to New York is a whole other story, post later. The Texas couple, my boyfriend Christopher and I moved into a 5th floor walk up on Houston and C or D, I was just a young west coast hippie, first time in New York )

 

The Texas couple invited some people to a party. One man was a mystery. He was eerie, shadowy, a magician. Talking to him was like talking to a dark spirit of some kind. The room seemed to fill with mysteries all around him, he seemed to have some kind of power. A few days later the Texas couple had moved on and Chris disappeared into the city. I never saw him again. I couldn’t pay the rent so I was out on the street. The mystery man found me and said he heard what had happened and he wondered if I was getting along all right. So he offered to introduce me to some people. It was he who introduced me to Bill Heine. The mystery man turned out to be Herbert Huncke, a beat generation writer. Later he published his memoirs all about his adventures with Ginsberg, and all those. But I didn’t know that then. To me, he was just Hunky. I called him Hunky all summer. By daylight he was a plain man, but elusive and odd, gay, beat, one of the East Side magicians. The four comers of my world in New York were Hunky, Heine, Panama, and Joplin. In my mind Joplin was the master magician. He occupied a great deal of space in my mind, even though I had barely met him. Later I learned he was an ex-rabbi. Once in Heine’s apartment, the three of us were standing around and there were loud popping noises coming out of the air, like paper bags full of air being popped. There were always unexplainable noises around these magicians. They created audible sounds with their minds. I called this telephonics. Ellen once told me that everywhere she went she heard Heine’s name. People would lean out of windows and say it. 

 

Well, I don’t think I told her then but I had the same experience, and more. Once I was sitting in a dinette having coffee and an English muffin (that’s all I ate all summer, just about), when I heard the Heine mind whispering from the air conditioner a long involved poem about the queen of Kamehameha or something and giving instructions to walk down the street, into a neighborhood I had never been in before, turn left, turn right, etc. and turn into another diner, and yes! There was Heine sitting on a barstool laughing hard at the sight of me, with his hand over his mouth. He always giggled furiously with his hand over his mouth because he was missing some front teeth. Apparently he knew he was pulling me in there in some mysterious way. I was always under the conviction I could hear his mind. Once in his apartment I was sitting on the couch watching him pacing back and forth frantically and it seemed like the voice in his mind was getting louder and louder until it was practically audible. He paced frenetically, wincing and grasping his temples with his hands. Finally he shouted at me to get out.

 

Bill Heine was a magician, but some of his illusions were a bit thin, such as the flapping wallet. A wallet was lying on the coffee table, and it began flapping, but the flapping end actually looked kind of transparent, the door scene was more interesting. Ellen and a man in a soldier’s uniform were in the room; (he was an ex-boyfriend of hers I think) and Heine was away. There was a pounding on the door, and Heine’s voice calling out, “Christine, Christine.” The man in the uniform went to the door, but no one was there. The hall to the right was very long, and to the left, it came to a dead end. Opposite the door there was a staircase, and one could see to the top of it clearly. A few minutes later there was another knock at the door and the man rushed to the door and yanked it open. No one there. We all craned our necks out the door. How could he have gotten away so fast? I thought I saw a grey shadow flitting down the hall, but then perhaps I did not. And when there was a third knock at the door, and his voice called “Ellen, Ellen,” I opened the door to fmd Heine standing there in a fit of giggles with his hand over his mouth. Both Ellen and I had a crush on him, but ultimately he chose her.

 

Another incident involved a fire. Ellen and I were sitting in the living room, and Heine was in another room. There was a decoration he had made, consisting of a hoop hanging from the ceiling, over which scraps of colored fabrics were hung, and the whole thing had caught fIre. Ellen screamed and Heine came rushing into the room. He reached up and lightly touched it. At the moment he touched it the whole ftre went out instantaneously.

 

Heine was 37 when I met him. He was a slight and fair man, quick, restless and startling.He had short light hair and he was so intense his presence could be disconcerting. He was called a magician, but he was not a sleight of hand artist – he was telepathic, telekinetic. I saw it with my own eyes. He was a gray magician – neither good nor evil, just entertaining himself.

TRAVELS in the 60’s

Author Christina Nelson in the 60’s

AUTOBIOGRAPHY in fewer words…I’m posting my biography a little at at time. But if you want to know I am, here it is in a nutshell. Well if that’s me in the 60’s, obviously I’m not a young kid. But keep in mind if you meet an older woman, you never know what she’s been through. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t always pretty, there were some rough times. The pictures are from San Francisco, Seattle (dancers) and Laguna Krishna Temple.

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