Beverly Hills, California, 1969: As the night clerk at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House, on fashionable Rodeo Drive, I met interesting people.
I’ve seen Hendrix stumble out of the elevator, on his way out to gig, so stoned that he couldn’t get through the door because he was holding his guitar case sideways.
Chuck Berry signed in one night with a young woman, giving me his American Express. He wasn’t doing his duck walk, so I wasn’t sure it was Chuck Berry, and later I called American Express. As it turns out, they called his home. He wasn’t there, but his wife was.
Ginger Baker (of the rock band Cream) and I broke into the kitchen one night to make sandwiches. Taj Mahal said hello. David Nelson was in and out. Miles stayed there sometimes.
But the most interesting guest was Ralph D.
Ralph D. was a well-to-do guy in the real estate business, short and squatty, nicely groomed with nice suits, from La Jolla. Often, he stayed overnight at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House. He liked dinner in the Chez Voltaire room, and he liked the bar pretty well, too.
In that bar, a hooker named Gina was often in and out, in a manner of speaking, and she was Ralph D’s favorite. Alas, she appeared to fall in love with him, and this didn’t really work out for her. But that’s another story.
One day I asked Ralph D. how he made so much money. He didn’t exactly answer my question, but what he said was much more valuable. He said, “If you want to make a lot of money, you need to work in a field in which it is possible to make a lot of money.”
That made me stop and think!
I’m embarrassed to say, now, that my paucity of vision, then, only let me see part of this truth. I did see that working as a desk clerk would not be a field in which it would be possible to make a lot of money.
I pondered this idea, and realized that, as long as I worked for someone else, they would be making part of the money from my labor. Therefore, I figured, it would be wiser to work for myself. Then I could collect the payment to the worker (me) and also the payment to the employer (me).
Now, looky back, it’s clear that he really meant: you can make more in some fields, like Real Estate, than in other occupations, but I didn’t really grasp that key point then.
But years later …
Years later, in San Francisco, I made my first attempt to use the valuable information he had given me. I decided to become a freelance bookkeeper. I would work for myself! I’d make the money of the employee (me) but also the money of the employer (also me), since I was working for myself. What a great idea!
Yes, bookkeeping would be the field in which I would make a lot of money.
Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!
Yep. Live and learn, bucky, live and learn. Some of us slower than others. Yep.
On Facebook, circa March 4, 2018 — Cathy Gentry posts: Some people have been a bit offended that the actor, Lee Marvin, is buried in a grave alongside 3 and 4-star generals at Arlington National Cemetery. His marker gives his name, rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else. Here’s a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time, why the heck does he rate burial with these guys?
Shady Shores community, near Dallas Texas, 1964: Paul H. was the largest roommate, and visiting his girlfriend in Fort Worth, he drove that highway often. A large and quiet guy, when he returned that day, all excited, we knew something was up.
MB Corral, Wichita Falls, 1959 — Well, the way it was, was that Fats Domino was real popular when he was still touring around after his big 1956 hit (“Blueberry Hill”) which had done so well, and so he was coming to the MB Corral in Wichita Falls on Friday night..
San Francisco, July 14, 1993: The day being ‘Bastille Day’, the French National Holiday, I was hired to play a gig at a French Restaurant on Polk Street. Wearing my tuxedo, with 
Henrietta, Texas, Spring 1956 — It was the sixth grade for me, and our English teacher Mrs. Lyles gave us a huge blue textbook, which was filled with short stories, and poems, mostly Lord Boron and Percy Bitch Shelley and some other people, who seemed just a bit hysterical, but it fit my proclivities just fine.