CAROLYN CASSADY
San Francisco 1996

The Women of the Beat Generation book-signing party was attended by many of the women in the book. Neal Cassady's former wife Carolyn is shown in this photograph reading from her book Off the Road at the Tosca restaurant/bar in North Beach. Carolyn lives in England. We corresponded with each other before this event. I presented to her a copy of Cassady/Shaving at the party. I talked to her about how she felt seeing my photograph of Neal with Ann Murphy in the book. I did not want to hurt her feelings. She said her relationship with Neal was so long ago she did not care.

HETTIE JONES
San Francisco 1996

Hettie Jones was the wife of LeRoi Jones (later to rename himself Amiri Baraka). The Women of the Beat Generation book-signing party was attended by many of the women in the book. Hettie Jones is shown in this photograph reading some of her work at the Tosco restaurant/bar in North Beach.

JANINE POMMY VEGA
San Francisco 1996

The Women of the Beat Generation book-signing party was attended by many of the women in the book. Poet Janine Pommy Vega is shown in this photograph reading some of her powerful work, at the Tosco in North Beach. As a young woman, she hung out and was the lover of some of the most famous Beat poets.

THE CHARLATANS
San Francisco 1997

I happened upon the Charlatans' photo session by the great rock photographer Jay Blakesberg at the Fillmore's tribute party for Ken Kesey. We had never met before, Jay recognized me and said he is a fan of my work and he was shooting for Rolling Stone magazine. Jay pulls his strobe's pc cord out of his camera and hands it to me. "Do you want to shoot the Charlatans?" He is very gracious. I am so excited and felt very privileged to be photographing these guys. They were the first; they broke ground and sustained a lot of verbal and physical abuse before the Dead, Airplane, Big Brother and everyone else. The West Coast rock scene started with the Charlatans at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada.