Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 3/26/24

Mostly Sunny | Reeves Canyon | Palace Enforcement | Wickson Specials | Firesafe Assessment | Landlines Work | Russian River | Ukiah Past | Healing Thoughts | Attorney Award | Berkeley Sightings | Mossy Stump | Alfonso's Bookstore | Japanese Maple | Redwood Summer | Yesterday's Catch | Pure Oxygen | Natural Selection | Big Opportunity | Grateful Alive | Straw Hut | Memorable Drunk | Pizza Hut | Safecracker Dunckel | Railroad Train | Crazy Ginsberg | Solar Eclipse

DRY WEATHER with near normal temperatures will continue today. A cold front will move across the area on Wednesday, bringing rain and gusty southerly winds. A second storm will approach on Friday and will likely result in more wet and unsettled weather through the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A partly cloudy 48F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Dry skies today then rain resumes tomorrow & into the weekend although forecast models are not in full agreement on where approaching fronts might actually come ashore. Wednesday & Friday are forecast to be the wettest days, we'll see.

UKIAH JUSTIFIES HOLD ON PALACE ENFORCEMENT ACTION, Blames State Agencies

by Mike Geniella

Ukiah officials say that even though the city has declared the landmark Palace Hotel a public safety hazard, a hold on enforcement action against the current owner is justified because a sale is still pending.

“Prospective buyers have a plan and are actively working through it,” said Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley in a statement issued to local news media over the weekend. 

Riley acknowledged that the city has yet to initiate any enforcement action against the current owner, Jitu Ishwar, after the City Council declared the historic building a public hazard in danger of collapse in early November.

A Sept. 29 city inspection by building and fire department officials led to the city’s emergency declaration, a move criticized by historic preservation advocates for lacking any supporting structural analysis of the three-story, 50,000-square-foot brick building. 

Riley, in her public statement, described city findings as “alarming” and “well-documented” evidence, referring to a series of widely publicized photographs showing the palace's deteriorated interior. The Guidiville group seized upon the city's declaration and has been promoting the notion to the public and the state that the Palace was in danger of collapsing and needed to be torn down at public expense so it could get on with private development.

Riley did not address the issue of the city's “emergency” effectively blocking a review by the state Office of Historic Preservation and sidestepping a CEQA investigation into the consequences of demolition. The Palace, dating back to the 19th century, is designated a state historical resource listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The proposed sale between Ishwar, the Guidiville Rancheria, and an unidentified local group of investors has dragged on for months. The historic landmark endures further damage from wet winter rains while the city delays imposing fines or taking allowable criminal action to ensure public safety in the core of downtown. Ishwar has owned the building since 2019 but has done nothing to stem the historic structure’s decline.

Ishwar is reportedly in escrow with the Guidiville Rancheria and an unidentified local group of investors. Tribal consultants initially sought $6.6 million in special state funding from the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), which is distributing money to tribes, nonprofits, and poor municipalities to study possible ground contamination at sites, pay for cleanup, and prepare sites for new development.

In its state application, the Guidiville group cited the city’s “emergency” action. It contended that the Palace is in “imminent danger of collapse,” needing to be torn down before ground contamination studies could be conducted.

Riley in her statement said a Sept. 29 city inspection by building and fire department officials led to the disputed emergency declaration. 

Riley described the team’s findings as “alarming” and “well-documented” evidence, including widely publicized photographs showing the palace's deteriorated interior. The Guidiville group immediately seized upon the city's declaration, promoting the notion to the public and the state that the Palace was in danger of collapsing. 

It is not the first time, however, that the city has declared the Palace a public safety hazard.

In 2011, the city made the same declaration but as in the current case, chose not to impose possible fines or take possible criminal action against then-owner Eladia Gaines of Marin County. 

Despite the city’s current pronouncements about the structure's safety, no action has been taken against Ishwar other than to serve notice and demand pedestrian safety scaffolding be erected around portions of the building facing public streets. 

Despite a local clamor for demolition by the Guidiville group and its supporters, experts in ground contamination studies and historic preservation work say they believe that is not necessary.

If Guidiville secures a state grant, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will oversee a contamination study. Senior engineers at that agency have publicly deemed demolition unnecessary to determine whether contamination existed and what might be needed to clean up the site.

Tom Carter, a contractor with experience rehabilitating historic structures including the Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon in neighboring Lake County, has gone through the Palace on multiple occasions and he said Monday he believes the Palace can still be restored into a viable hotel, restaurant, or retail complex despite its current decrepit state. 

Carolyn Kiernat, a noted historic preservation architect with the firm of Page & Turnbull in San Francisco, agrees. Kiernat and a Page & Turnbull team personally examined the Palace in 2022.

In a weekend op-ed, Kiernat said, “Based on past project experience and consultation with experienced structural engineers, I believe there is an alternative to demolition.”

Kiernat urged city officials to hire a “qualified third-party structural engineer to assess the building and determine objectively what can be done. Perhaps a portion of the building needs to be demolished, or possibly reconstruction of the 1891 corner is in order. We won’t know until a structural assessment is complete.”

Riley in her statement blamed the current uncertainty about the Palace’s fate on the pending state review of Guidiville’s application to use state money to raze the structure.

The Guidiville group’s plans “are constrained by other agencies’ timelines that they cannot control,” said Riley.

Riley said, “We expect to know more soon.” 

The state DTSC said a review of the Guidiville application continues, and a decision is not likely until April.

AV FIRE DEPARTMENT:

After all this rain it's hard to believe fire season is right around the corner, but this is the time to get a jump on defensible space and home hardening projects. We highly encourage AV residents to take advantage of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council's Free Home Assessments for wildfire resiliance. You'll get a non-judgmental, non-binding, non-regulatory, risk-free educational visit that will help you identify ways to make your home and property safer. Follow the link for more info: firesafemendocino.org/home-assessments/

SHERIFF KENDALL [on saving landlines]: 

I recently spoke with the CPUC regarding that. I also sent them a letter as did many of my fellow sheriffs in Northern California. Lord knows how this will play out. I can tell you the only thing that consistantly works when all hell breaks loose around here are the copper phones and local radio. We don’t need to be removing half of what works in our county.

A UKIAH READER WRITES: Ukiah was a nice town from 1950 to about 1980. Affordable homes, TWO hospitals, (these two items alone caused doctors to stay here), lots of activities like bowling ally, skating rinks, swimming pool, park, safe streets, sport activities. Only a fraction of these are here now. We need over a hundred new medium priced homes, another hospital, and a new movie theater. The city and county needs to install super high speed Internet to encourage work at home people to move here in the needed homes. This will increase the tax base long term, enabling more modern services.

JANICE ENGLAND: I was surprised and saddened tht the AVA will soon only be accessible on line. I will miss holding the the printed page. I send my loving, healing thoughts to Bruce Anderson during his health “challenges.” Through it all he has kept his sense of humor. I was recently hospitalized and strongly relate to his experience of being woken up at all times during the night, poked, prodded, injections, pills… Oy! I look forward to reading that he’s home. Thanks to all for putting out a paper that continues to fan the flames of discontent.

MIKE GENIELLA:

Young Bode Gower of Ukiah scores as a promising prosecutor.

Kathi Gower, a former colleague of mine in the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office, posted this about her son's achievement: “Outstanding Prosecution Attorney Award at the 2024 California State Mock Trial Competition. 32 counties participated.” 

Congrats, Bode!

Mendocino County’s next District Attorney?

IN PURSUIT OF A BOMBER: First Sightings in Berkeley [January 3, 2000]

by Ron Trapp

BARTing over from San Francisco’s “Devil’s Quadrangle” at ground zero, 16th and Mission, I arrived 31 minutes after departure on Shattuck Ave., downtown Berkeley, in a quite different world — the formerly leftist “People’s Republic of Berkeley.” I saw no telltale signs of radicals or revolutionaries along the dozen or so blocks I hiked, heading for Black Oak Bookstore. However, more than a dozen Volvos, Mercedes, and SUVs glided past, as well as hordes of well-heeled yuppies bustling through the twilight towards dinner at Chez Panisse or any of the other numerous swanky restaurants nearby. Well, I mused, of course the old guard will all be hunkered down at the bookstore, waiting for the “troops or truth” from up north, come to the Bay area to discuss “Who Bombed Judi Bari?”

I was excited and more than a bit curious. After multiple readings about and by such people as Mary Moore, Jim Martin, Ed Gehrman, Irv Sutley, and, of course, Bruce Anderson, I was finally going to see the real deal — some faces and words to match with the writings, first impressions to go with long-held delusions fancifully tied to persuasive arguments. I figured I would play a guessing game with myself — who’s that guy? Is that fellow with the beard one of the players, or some other renowned Berkeley character? Everybody was bound to be somebody! Who would be dressed for dining at Denny’s and would any purple people present themselves? I was ready for woo-woo and twinkling. I was fired up, anxious for counter-culture celebrity. As it turned out, I wasn’t to be disappointed.

Unfortunately, I arrived way too early. I browsed around a bit with several other folks until I noticed a single man setting up some card chairs where shelves of books had been only moments before. I wanted a good seat for taking photos of the speakers, so I chose a middle chair third row back, and deposited coat, camera, books, etc. By now more people were milling about, and I realized the solitary man wasn’t getting any assistance, so I offered to help. He appeared pleased to accept and readily thanked me. I joined in and together we brought about 65 chairs out, he arranging them and orchestrating the set-up. About that time a lady fitting one of Bruce’s descriptions was fluttering about, hoisting boxes and a sign reading “Who Bombed Judi Bari?” (other side answering, “Who is Mike Sweeney?”). Middle-aged, hippie looking, dressed in blue and purple with embroidered top, beautiful shawl, long beaded earrings, she approached the set-up man and told him she needed a table to put her things on. We had been busy, he was tired, but he told her he would get her a table. She seemed peeved that he didn’t move towards that goal immediately. Instead, he again thanked me, said we were done with the chairs, and he had to set up the microphone, p.a. system, etc., and headed to a back room.

Things began to pick up from there. Another VIP came along, this being a woman who worked at, ran, or partly owned the bookstore (so I surmised). It turns out her name was Kate Coleman and she is the person who arranged for and is running this event. I remembered reading an article in the AVA by her about Judi Bari! Ah Ha! My first authorial sighting! Next she and the purple lady somehow collide, and I’m treated to my second lady of renown. “Hello,” says purple, “I’m Mary Moore, I’ll be speaking here tonight,” she told the lady in charge. “No,” remanded the lady, “Bruce Anderson is speaking.” “Oh, you don’t understand,” Mary Moore insists. “There are five of us who speak!” A battle of wills ensued. Another “No, when I talked to Bruce, it was agreed he was speaking.” “Oh, no,” rejoins Mary. “It’s always all five of us!” And so on, while Kate gets out her note pad and jots down the five names. I’m impressed with Ms. Moore, she seems to have won this round. More people filter in. Mary mentions the name Irv Sutley and points to a large man sitting in back with a cast on his arm. He’s talking to a couple other bearded fellows. Wow, I think, reaching for my camera. It’s time to get to work!

Meanwhile Mary Moore tires of waiting for her table and goes over in front of the set-up man and starts to pick up and move chairs, saying, “I’ll use these instead of a table.” This really aggravates the man, who then commands her “Look, lady, I told you I’d get you a table! Will you put down my chairs!?” Ms. Moore, startled, puts down the chairs and retreats to a rear area, confiding to Ms. Coleman, “He’s not being at all helpful!” She replies, “Well, he likes to set things up like he wants them.” (He’s arranging podium, microphone, wiring now). The room is filling rapidly. I see Alexander Cockburn has arrived, he’s often been to Bay Area events and I know him when I see him. Great! I hope he speaks out.

Irv Sutley is coming my way. I say hello and introduce myself. He’s friendly and talkative. I ask him if anyone will mind my taking photos. He says he doesn’t and he’s heard Bruce say these meetings are public and open, so there should be no problems. I thank him and he goes off to talk to other people.

The table episode draws to a close. The set-up man brings out the requested table and asks Mary Moore where she wants it. They agree on placement and he continues with his tasks. Moments later Ms. Moore has the last word; passing him, she sarcastically remarks “Thanks so much for your pleasant attitude tonight.” He stares at her incredulously and his eyes happen to meet mine. We share an old-fashioned, sympathetic eyeroll. I can’t help think, yikes, an injured liberal warrior! A VIP wronged by a commoner! First impression!

Before long the 65 plus chairs were full. People were standing around at the sides and back, also. Leafleteers were passing out papers. A woman handed me Earth First! papers and I asked who she was? “Karen Pickett” she said sourly. Ooh! I know that name! I’m acquainted with her role in the play. A man distributes Flatland magazine — turns out it’s Jim Martin, the publisher himself. He’s wearing blue jeans and a tie, a regular looking guy with a mustache. Will he go to Denny’s afterwards?

Karen Pickett sits in a row with four other apparent Earth First!ers. No one smiles. (Especially not later, when Bruce and his co-speakers are talking) They will occasionally shout out, just like on cue — “That’s a lie!” “It wasn’t a bomb.” “Not true.” I’ve never seen such a dour, serious crew before (except perhaps at a Board of Education meeting). I was astounded later when looking through photos from the evening to find one with Ms. Pickett smiling. I’m darned if I can figure out what about!

The meeting finally begins. Kate introduces Alexander Cockburn, who in turn introduces the editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, Bruce Anderson. Cockburn unabashedly praises the editor, flat out declaring the AVA is the best paper in the country, reporting “locally, controversy… (it’s) radical, this rickety ship… I feel the most pride in having him as my editor of all them I’ve written for.”

Bruce comes to the podium and it’s hard for me to reconcile this “easy going” personable guy with the hardhitting Mr. Negativity I’ve read for ten years. He’s funny and ironic, like in print, but I pictured a meaner, Hemingway type guy. I’m impressed. He runs down the various facets of the bombing, the views of the so called “Bari-ites,” the suspicions of the “Sweeney for Bomber” people, a whole lot of backgrounds and current information. Yet he doesn’t speak for very long. Since I have read everything in the AVA about said topic since coverage began, I don’t hang on every word. I find myself wondering, if I had no information at all about the case, would I have felt tonight’s discussion enlightening, confusing, haphazard, or all of the above? I imagined that most people there knew a lot about the case and the accusations against Sweeney, but I couldn’t be sure.

Jim Martin follows Bruce, giving an overview of what’s in his magazine. I allow myself to gaze around the room, eyeing the crowd. Eight or ten people are taking copious notes. One guy is video-taping the event. A couple tape recorders capture every word. Another man besides myself takes a lot of photos. One lady is crocheting! I notice Cockburn seems frazzled and once or twice I catch him nodded out in his chair! Now, that would be a great photo, I think. Nah, he’s had a long day, I’m sure…

Not that it matters, but there may have been four people under 40 in the crowd, maybe not. I haven’t seen so many gray beards, white haired and bald heads since …? And certainly a white crowd: I spied no Latinos, no Asians, no African-Americans in the audience (unless one counts the African-American set-up man working the event and fending off Mary Moore — I regret I failed to get his take on the topic.) Yes, we are certainly a long short way from the cultural diversity of the Mission tonight!

Mary Moore takes over, explaining her role as activist, friend of Judi Bari, interested party, etc. After her initial encounter with the set-up man, I’m suspicious and leery of her. But she comes across as very knowledgeable, heartfelt, and sincere. Later she jousted admirably with Karen Pickett over the issues of censorship by the Redwood Summer Justice Project people against her and Bruce’s accusations. At one point Pickett feebly pointed out that she’s an Earth First!er and not an RSJPer. She also managed to have it both ways — at one point she declared, “We don’t believe Sweeney did the bombing.” Later, she seemed to compromise: “We want a thorough investigation — I’m not a Sweeney defender.”

Ed Gehrman spoke next, briefly, and introduced Irv Sutley. Irv came across as a believable (to me) good old boy, possibly a hippie type from the old days. He flat out declared he’s not and never has been a pacifist. He gave detailed accounts of his past political exploits concerning the Peace and Freedom Party, his relationship with Judi Bari, and his former status as suspected bomber. He and Bruce happily admit they used to have a very different relationship — Bruce had thought he did the bombing! Around this time Mary Moore also testified to Bruce’s redemptive qualities: he had, in fact, apologized to her in person and in print for (unwarranted?) transgressions against her. So there is still hope for the editor!

A surprise guest was Pat Thurston, newly fired KSRO talk show hostess, who spoke briefly over the objections of the lady in charge who wanted audience questions and (apparently) the night’s finale. She also addressed the censorship issues surrounding this case of course, her views of her firing (see previous article in AVA). She also engaged and overwhelmed Ms. Picket in a verbal joust concerning intimidation tactics and rights to free discussion.

Point-counterpoint ended the evening. Things were lively by now but certainly not out of hand! Here’s a brief sampling.

Mark Drake, a guy from KMUD dissed Professor Foster (see Flatland for Foster’s analysis); this PO’d Cockburn who then snarled about Drake’s piousness regarding Mr. Foster. They bickered; I give Cockburn the decision. Scott Soriano from Time Tested Books in Sacramento peppered his statements with more swear words and colloquialisms than any other speaker of the evening, directing his venom at Ms. Alicia Littletree and RSJPers. Ms. Pickett started a long haranguing filibuster against one and all, only to be interrupted by Jim Martin who declared that he has it on tape that Darryl Cherney very recently was still accusing Irv Sutley of writing the Argus and Lord’s Avenger letters, and thus being the bomber. Of course, on cue, Ms. Pickett exclaimed, “Oh, Darryl!”

A few more folks from the audience offered various comments to Bruce (who MC’d the closing moments) either saying he was full of crap about the FBI not killing lots of people throughout history or the odd plea for us all to be nice to each other. A young, fast talking lawyer ended the free speech with a long declamation against Bruce and his associates for taking a narrow view of events and proving nothing. He won hands down the evening’s award for verbosity, rapid fire delivery and zero content. Of course, he seemed to be with the Karen Pickett contingency of prim protesters. The group of five huddled together at the evening’s end, no doubt planning their next “disruption” or “engagement” (see 2-23 AVA).

By the close of the meeting I had been able to see the faces of all the names I’d read about, and then some! I was satisfied. Pleased actually. I’m not sure how the participants viewed the evening, and I don’t have a clue as to what the “audience” felt as they left the arena. We had just experienced an open forum, it seemed to me, at least. Any closer to the answer of Who Bombed Judi Bari? Probably not. But people are talking, and censorship, temporarily, had been overcome. As I neared the door, bound for the Berkeley BART, I spied a small man with a large, shiny, silver wok strapped to his head, reciting poems to a meager audience of one. He said his name was Louie. “Want to hear a poem?,” he asked me? Sure, I replied, fire away. But tell me first, I demanded, “Who Bombed Judi Bari?” “You got me,” he said. So I took his picture, listened to his poem, and fled into the night. 

ALFONSO’S

Re: Does Anyone Remember Alfonso and His Shop?

Marco here. It was mostly a bookshop, at least to me. In the early '80s I bought a genuine 1882 /Oahspe/ from him for $10. Later it was stolen from me by a weird little man who came to my teevee show in Caspar, didn't join the show but wandered around handling things as though my rented house was a thrift shop. That was 1986 or '87, and the thief was in his fifties or early sixties, it looked like, so he'd be about 100 years old now, if he's still alive. Look up Oahspe on wikipedia. It was as creative and imaginative and /serious/ as what we think of as the regular bible; it just had different stories in it, including angels warring in fleets of spaceships.

Alfonso did indeed use existing telephone lines to provide music to paying subscribers in town, including private homes, shops and restaurants. He played records from his shop on a turntable through a wonderful monaural tube amplifier glowing on a shelf behind the counter, then to a transformer into the shared line. Each subscriber had a transformer installed on his phone jack, and from there it went into the home or restaurant's amplifier and speakers. Alfonso's system was a significant inspiration for my 1985 Radio *Free Earth automatic FM radio station in the tower of the red church where Corners of the Mouth health food store was and is.

Alfonso's shop was upstairs, stuffed with books and records and tobacco products and smelled strongly of dust and clove cigaret smoke. There was a curtained door into the back. I don't know what was back there; I imagined he lived there. He'd read and smoke and quietly move around adjusting things and talk to you if you talked to him first, and whenever the needle got to the end of the record he'd turn the record over or change it. He didn't have a tape recorder or a mixer or a microphone, just the record player, which he kept in operation the whole time his shop was open and sometimes for hours afterward. He wasn't obsessive about it; it could be silent for minutes between records, and you'd hear the needle being set on each next one.

Marco McClean

ED NOTES

WAVY GRAVY has been irritating me for a long, long time. What's amusing about this guy? For that matter, what was amusing about the 60s, or the eternally self-congratulatory hippie royal family that arose from that murderous decade? Woodstock? A half-million stoned morons paying small fortunes to wallow in a sea of mud over an entire hepatitis weekend while Gravy and his dope-dealing collective served up vats of inedible slop in between sales. Having cleaned up in the drug biz, the Hog Farm, Laytonville, just like the Mafia, recycled its tax-free dough in legit businesses, among them the grand ranch just north of Laytonville where they now throw lucrative concerts for a new generation of lemmings. Looked at objectively, the hippie interlude was hugely destructive and ought to be nationally mourned rather than viewed nostalgically via big Frisco celeb parties for a smarmy, tie-dyed crook. Charles Manson is that decade's representative figure.

THE TRUE HEROES of the 60s were people like Pat Kovner of Laytonville and Frank Cieciorka of Alderpoint. They were in Mississippi in 1964, Pat as a Freedom Rider, Frank as a SNCC field worker. My brother Rob and my cousin Jim were already in federal prison for refusing to register for the draft, among the first young people to say No to the War On Vietnam. Where's the party for these people?

GRAVY GROOVY WAVY WAHOO is another example of how just about any old media savvy yob can bamboozle his way to fame and fortune. (Why anybody would want fame without fortune beats me, but there seems to be no end of candidates.) The mythologizers of the late Judi Bari, who had the media at her feet in her last years, were in high media mode in the aftermath of her husband’s bombing in Oakland because of their bogus case in October of 2001. The Redwood Justice Project's fundraising appeal was even blurbed by Alice Walker, the late David Brower and Tom Hayden, none of whom had anything at all to do with Judi Bari or Redwood Summer until Judi's former husband, Mike Sweeney, blew her up in front of Oakland High School back in 1990. Nor did any of the famous people who have since endorsed the Bari-ites attempt to shakedown the federal government for $20 million have anything at all to do with Judi Bari during the Redwood Summer period. She could have used a few big shot allies then, but the big shots were off on other photo ops, I guess, because they were no-shows at that mini-show down. The only famous person involved in Redwood Summer during Redwood Summer was Alexander Cockburn, the sole in-country left intellectual I'm aware of who's willing to put himself up front in situations where the outcome might be unpleasant. The only elected local official to lend his name and his bod to the Redwood Summer effort was David Colfax. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, March 25, 2024

JOSHUA BONNET, Leggett. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, suspended license for DUI.

ANDREW CEDILLO, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, protective order violation, offenses while on bail.

SHELLY LEGGETT, Covelo. Child abduction, disorderly conduct-under influence, resisting.

KRISTO OUSEY, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.

JERMIAH RAY, Covelo. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

MICHAEL WHITEHURST, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, drinking in public, parole violation.

NO VACCINE, NO INSURANCE 

Editor: 

Regarding the resurgence of measles, it appears that anti-vaxxers are winning, but eventually evolution will take care of this lunacy. Until then, this misguided view will wreak havoc on the rest of us. People are allowed to have mistaken views, but the rest of us do not have to pay for them. I have a way to possibly urge these folks along: If anyone falls ill to a disease that has a readily available vaccine and the patient is not vaccinated or medically exempt, no insurance or public funds should be used for treatment. The person should be 100% responsible, and the debt should not be eligible for discharge in bankruptcy. While natural selection is slow, maybe the specter of financial ruin will speed things along. 

Steve Haeffele 

Santa Rosa 

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE JUMPER SURVIVES AND JOKES ABOUT IT IN SANTA ROSA STAND-UP COMEDY SHOW

by Austin Murphy

Fifteen months ago, Thor McKay jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. 

And lived. 

Now, following a long line of comics who mine their trauma and pain for laugh lines, he is dabbling in stand-up comedy, drawing much of his material from that cold December day. 

“The song I jumped off the bridge to,” the 24-year-old recently told an enthusiastic audience at Barrel Proof Lounge in Santa Rosa, “was ‘Jump’ by Van Halen.” 

The line got big laughs, although a few people seemed slightly shocked, as if they were thinking, Wow, is he really going there? 

He was. 

“And I wore a Nike shirt,” added McKay, a fourth-year student at Santa Rosa Junior College. “So it was like, Just Do It.” 

200 feet in 4 seconds 

On Dec. 27, 2022, McKay boarded a bus at the Santa Rosa Transit Mall on Second Street. He got off two hours later at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, near the toll booths, then walked through a broad tunnel to the public sidewalk on the east side of the span. 

Then he broke into a run. 

“It was adrenaline,” he recalls. “I was excited, I knew I wanted to do it.” 

He scaled a section of protective fence, then let go. After plunging 200 feet in roughly 4 seconds, he hit the water at 80 mph, breaking seven thoracic vertebrae — T2 through T8 — puncturing a lung and rupturing his esophagus. 

Only 1 out of 50 people who leaps from the span survives. McKay is one of them. Six weeks later he was back under the bridge, this time on land, at the Coast Guard station in Sausalito, to thank crew members who pulled him from the water. He donned a tux for the occasion. 

“I'm really up today,” said McKay, who seemed to brim that day with newfound purpose. “I want to live for other people, to show them that their life matters. Because everybody has potential. There's always something important somebody can bring to this earth.” 

Mckay is now back at the junior college, in his final semester as a political science major. 

Asked what prompted him to give comedy a try, he explained that, “One day I just decided, the heck with it, let's try it.” Standing before an audience and saying “a bunch of dumb s---” was not a reach for him, he said, “because I do that already.” 

“You only live once,” he added. That phrase, a bit shopworn, takes on added poignancy passing his lips, and invites the question: What dark events drove a 23-year-old to the 4-foot railing of the world's best known bridge, and then over it? 

Parents struggling with addiction 

Just getting to the junior college was a major feat for McKay, whose mother was on drugs, he says, when she gave birth to him. 

Born in Santa Rosa, he moved at age 3 to Cloverdale. At age 7 he was removed from that home by Child Protective Services, then lived in a series of group homes. 

Miserable at one such facility in Napa when he was 15, he called his parents, asking them to come get him. They did, and took him back to their house in Lake County. After two months, sheriff's deputies removed him from that home, and arrested his mother, who “had a warrant for something she did, crime-wise,” says McKay, who was then sent to live at another group home. 

McKay's issues include post-traumatic stress, bipolar disorder, depression and intellectual delays. 

“I'm like Friedman's (home improvement store),” he riffs in his routine, “you name it, I've got it.” 

He graduated from North Valley School in Santa Rosa, a campus for students with emotional and educational challenges. 

“The joke I make is that I went to a school where the kids felt special but they didn't know who Ed was,” he says with a smile. In the next breath, he defends North Valley as a good, if not great, school “for group home kids and people throughout the foster care system.” 

While there, he played flanker for Lobos Rugby Club, which practiced at Elsie Allen High School. Thor was unlike a lot of his teammates — he once showed up at a parent meeting rocking a purple velvet suit and bow tie — but was embraced, rather than ridiculed, for his idiosyncrasies, according to a 2018 story on the club in Sonoma Magazine. 

He enrolled at the junior college in 2020, eventually deciding to major in political science, in hopes that it might prepare him “to help people going through what I experienced.” 

Dark autumn 

McKay was derailed by a confluence of events in the fall of 2022, starting with a deeply disturbing, chance meeting. While walking on Morgan Street in downtown Santa Rosa, he came upon a woman having a seizure, and called 911. 

The woman had overdosed. As first responders helped her, McKay realized she was his mother. Eileen Sumi McKay was 52 at the time, “but looked 85,” recalled Thor, who lacked the will to follow her to the hospital. 

“I was so done at the moment that I just ran,” he told the Oak Leaf, the Santa Rosa Junior College newspaper, in February of 2023. 

McKay was further discouraged by a string of incidents on campus that he perceived as discriminatory, including an episode in which a math instructor called attention to his status as a disabled student in front of the class. 

He had been recruited by Delashay Carmona-Benson, then president of the Disabled Students Union, to be her co-president. (Carmona-Benson died last November at the age of 54.) 

After advocating for eight months, McKay succeeded in getting the name of that group changed to Universally Empowered Students. 

“I don't like the word ‘'disability’,” he said. “There's a negative stigma around it.” 

Carmona-Benson, McKay and others put in many hours of work collaborating with other clubs to put on a “major event” at the end of November called “Tea with Tea.” 

But the administration canceled the event, deeply disappointing some students, including McKay. 

In a February 2023 email to The Press Democrat explaining why the dinner was called off, a spokesperson for the college said “ ‘The 'Tea with Tea’ event was canceled because the event approval process was not followed.” 

Those and other incidents nudged him further into depression. But the biggest push toward his suicidal state, McKay says, was that encounter with his overdosed mother. After seeing her, he stopped taking his antipsychotic medication, cold turkey. 

Then came December, which compounded his depression, as it does for many, providing multiple, daily reminders that he had no extended family with whom to celebrate. 

On Dec. 18, his 23rd birthday, McKay made up his mind: He would take his own life. He did his homework, and made a plan. Nine days later he boarded Golden Gate Transit's 101 bus from Santa Rosa to San Francisco. 

That bus stopped seven times before depositing him at the south end of the bridge. The trip felt interminable, McKay recalls. “That's another reason I did it,” he now says. “After all that time I was like, ‘Fuck, I might as well do it, I've been on this bus for two hours’.”

Rare survivor 

The Bay was not calm, and that saved his life. McKay landed on his back on the peak of a wave — swells were up to 5 feet that day — which served as a kind of pillow, he explains. 

John Bateson, author of “The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge,” and a longtime advocate for suicide prevention, found McKay's survival remarkable. 

“I've never heard of anyone who survived after landing on their back,” he said. 

“Almost all the survivors go in feet first and at a slight angle, so that their body automatically arcs back up to the surface.” Jumpers who go “straight in, feet first,” end up plunging so deep into the Bay that they drown. 

About 5% of people who jump live through initial impact, Bateson says, but subsequently drown. 

By surviving, McKay gained membership in a very select group. Since it opened in 1937, some 2,000 people are known to have died by jumping off the bridge. That number is “an undercount,” says Bateson, who points out that hundreds of other people “have indicated an intent to go to the bridge to jump, and their bodies were never found, or found too far away to be connected with certainty to the bridge.” 

But the fatality rate among jumpers is more than 98%. 

“When people jump from the bridge, death is almost guaranteed.” 

Not only did McKay not die — he didn't lose consciousness. Nor did he lose his desire to leave this world. At least not right away. 

McKay landed near a giant rock which he then clung to for 40 minutes, until he was rescued by the Coast Guard. 

While holding on, he remembers shouting out over the water, “Whatever is out there just take me!” 

“I was like, ‘I just want to die’.”

While he's grateful to be among the living, grateful to the Coast Guard personnel who plucked him from the Bay, grateful for this “new opportunity — I'll try to do good with it,” McKay also states — quite firmly — that he doesn't regret jumping. 

“I don't regret anything I did. Because, what's the point?” 

His wide contrarian streak is on display as he discusses the Golden Gate Bridge's suicide deterrent net, which was completed one year and four days after he leaped from the span. 

McKay is skeptical about that barrier, and its price tag in particular, which could be close to $400 million. (Contractors on the project have sued the bridge district for failing to adjust for cost overruns that were beyond the builders' control.) 

“I hate to say it like this, and it may sound kind of messed up, but it's true: I think it's kind of bullshit that we spent $400 million on a net that could've gone to other programs.” 

He described the barrier as “a Band-Aid,” saying, “People are just going to find other ways to do it.” 

Did we mention he's a bit of a contrarian? 

A better place 

Eight months after chancing upon his mother just after she'd overdosed, McKay learned that she had died on May 29. Hers was one of 79 names read aloud at a December ceremony at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa, which served as remembrance of people who died homeless in Sonoma County in 2023. 

Her son is at peace with that. He's actually happy for her, he says. “She's in a better place, hopefully, than where she was before. She doesn't have to struggle anymore.” 

While McKay himself is in a very good place, back on his meds and stable, he points out that his struggles aren't necessarily over, either. 

“I ain't gonna lie, I still wake up and I think, 'Fuck, I shouldn't have made it. Statistically, I should not be here.” 

He sees himself as an advocate for mental health, and as a resource for people who might be thinking of harming themselves. 

That's where the stand-up comedy comes in. “I embrace the fact that life is hard. And while I'm here, I might as well make people laugh about that.” 

McKay hastens to note that he doesn't want to come off as overly negative. “I don't want to be like, ‘the world sucks and everything's terrible’.”

But he understands, fully, how people end up in dark places. “Life does suck sometimes. I get what they're going through.” 

Early in his brief set at the Barrel Proof on Wednesday night, McKay shared his plan: 

“We'll start out with suicide jokes, then we'll move to special-ed jokes.” 

Bringing it home five minutes later, as part of a bit demonstrating how few f's he has left to give, McKay shouted out the number on his bank card, including the three-digit security code. 

He wasn't finished giving out digits. 

“If you ever want to kill yourself, and you want to talk about it,” he shouted, “my phone number is 707-608-8929.” 

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

MEMORABLE DRUNKS (#1)

by Paul Modic

When I was sixteen I stole a couple bottles of Mateus and Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and with pockets full of bottles met my crush Lissa at one of the nearly finished houses being built in her suburban addition under the TV towers.

We drank most of it, there were some delicious drunken kisses, and I staggered toward home.

My best friend Tim met me by a small shopping center, called a strip mall today, and in my drunken exuberance I pushed a shopping cart while running, let it go, and watched it roll along the walkway where it veered left and bounced into an off-duty policeman’s car.

As I was being driven downtown I knew I had a joint in the inside pocket of my sports jacket but was so drunk I couldn’t get it together to ditch it or eat it. Tim had once said to me, “Why do you carry that joint around? Just so you can be busted at any moment?”

I was sitting in the police station, after they found the joint, and barfed copiously on the floor. My parents were called and my mother called her buddy Hugh Martz, the director of the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission, and somehow he got me out of there without charges.

“I pleaded middle class and got off.” (I have been fond of saying that ever since.)

MASTER SAFECRACKER SELDOM HAD TO DRILL LOCK TO OPEN IT

by Sam Whiting

When Ken “Safecracker” Dunckel arrived at a job he always left his power drill in the van. In his mind, drilling would be “cheating” as a means of gaining entry to a locked box in a home or business. Dunckel prided himself on leaving a safe exactly as he had found it, though the door would now be opened. The safecracker did his work by manipulating combination locks for clients who had either forgotten or lost the combo.

By turning the dial, which contains the tiny numbers, he could feel or hear the place where the dial hesitates ever so slightly, the first hint toward deciphering the combination. It usually took 45 minutes to an hour before the combination would be solved, the lever would drop and the lock would open, without Dunckel having to resort to a power tool and deface the safe. 

“Anybody can learn to drill a hole,” said Ken Doyle, a professional colleague. “Ken could make the lock talk and then listen to what it said. That is the whole key to safecracking.” 

The other key is client-relations. People were often stressed and panicked by the time Dunckel was called and he could calm them down. It helped that he had a sense of humor about his occupation. 

“When I'm on a job, it seems like everybody's frustrated inner comedian comes out,” he told the Chronicle's Edward Guthmann during an on-the-job report in 2009. “They'll start with ‘Did you learn this in prison?’ Then they say, ‘When are you going to get the nitro or the dynamite?’ If it goes on like that, sometimes I'll just tell them, ‘Listen, it’s $50 more for each joke you tell that I've already heard’.”

Kunckel heard them all in nearly 40 years as a solo practitioner operating out of a Ford Econoline tool truck parked at his home in Pacifica. His business was called simply “Safecracker,” and the license plate on his van read “yegg,” evoking Cockney slang for a one who breaks into safes, legally or illegally. 

On Aug. 5, Dunckel serviced a safe at the House of Prime Rib on Van Ness, then went out to a residence in Seacliff to open a steel vault door with a malfunctioning lock. Those were his last jobs, though the phone kept ringing. Dunckel died Feb. 29 at home with his safes and all the equipment needed to crack them. Cause of death was cardiac issues aggravated by severe kidney disease, said his wife of 46 years, Suzanne Buckley Dunckel. He was 70. 

“His work was everything, it defined him,” said his wife, noting that Dunckel wrote more than 200 articles for industry periodicals, mostly “Safe and Vault.” He also taught safe manipulation at industry conferences across the United States, where he was widely recognized as a master. He once whipped a software designer who developed a computerized safe dialer, in a safecracking duel filmed for the Discovery Channel. The episode is available on YouTube. 

The art of safecracking doesn't involve picking locks normally opened by a key. That's what a locksmith does. A safecracker decodes the 100 numbers on a dial, which requires a highly technical skill and touch and patience. Constant practice is necessary to stay sharp. 

“It's not like you see in the movies, where a safecracker just cocks his ear, listens closely and turns the dial a few times. There's no 'pop pop,' 'boom boom' when the numbers come up,'' he explained to the Chronicle. 'You have to pretty much decipher them. It's a lot of concentration and focus.' 

Kenneth Donald Dunckel was born Sept. 23, 1953, in Albany, N.Y. By age 9, he was selling flower seeds door to door and also delivering the Albany Times Union on his bicycle. By the time he was 13, he was handicapping the horses at Saratoga Springs, in partnership with an uncle who placed the bets. 

He graduated from Albany Senior High School in 1971. Faced with the draft he joined the Marines, and ended up serving in Hawaii. After his release from the service, he attended a locksmith school in Connecticut, and started his career picking car locks and other devices involving keys. 

He switched to the more complicated work of combination locks and safes after returning to Honolulu. In 1977, he was browsing the mystery section at a bookstore in Ala Moana Center when he met Suzanne Buckley, there to buy a copy of “The Little Foxes” for an audition of the play. 

“I'd never met a locksmith, but what the hell,” said Buckley, who had grown up in Los Altos, and graduated from Holy Cross High School. “He carried a pager 24/7.” 

In 1978, they moved to Redwood City and got married. Dunckel got a job working for A-A Lock & Alarm on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. He opened “Safecracker” in 1986 after working for years as a locksmith and corporate security agent at Crocker National Bank, in downtown San Francisco. That same year they bought a house in the Linda Mar Valley neighborhood of Pacifica, where they lived for 39 years, raising a son, Patrick. 

When a Chronicle reporter asked him about the name of his business, Dunckel allowed that “some people in my industry think 'safecracker' has a negative connotation. And I tell them, at least I didn't name my business 'Burglar.' But legal safecrackers are not former safe burglars. California law requires a clean record for licensing.” 

There is downtime built into a career as a licensed safecracker and Dunckel put his to good use by shooting pool. He liked to play 8-ball at Shannon Arms, an Irish pub in the Sunset and Wild Side West, a lesbian bar in Bernal Heights. 

“He had an overfocus on what he was doing,” said his wife. 

Ken Doyle learned this the day he met Dunckel. Doyle was in his shop at Advanced Safe & Vault. Dunckel came in, introduced himself, and told Doyle to give him a call if he ran into a safe he couldn't crack. Doyle knew Dunckel by reputation and invited him to have a go at a safe he'd been working on in his spare time. 

“He went out to get his manipulation kit and started a-twiddling and had it open in 15 or 20 minutes, and told me 'the number you got for wheel-2 was right on the money! That'll be $160, please’,” Doyle recalled in a eulogy. “That was a bargain because it began a 40-year relationship.” 

He also had a relationship with Jim Nuss, former President of Herman Safe, in San Francisco. He'd call on Dunckel to handle a job too tough for in-house service. 

“Kenny was a yegg,” said Nuss, offering the highest compliment in the trade. “Manipulation of a combination lock could take five minutes or five days, and there were never any callbacks with Kenny. He was that good.” 

New York defense attorney Dennis Wade once flew Dunckel to London to testify as an expert witness in the trial of Cindy Royce, a New York jeweler who claimed that she had lost $5 million in insured product when her safe was burglarized in 1989. The insurer, Lloyd's of London, relied on Dunckel's testimony in the High Court to unmask the fraud. 

“Ken stood in the witness box and gave evidence proving that the safe was in fact open when burglarized, and thus the premise of the entire claim was a fabrication,” recalled Wade, who became friends with his expert witness, as was often the case among clients of the Safecracker. 

“Ken was admired as a witness because of his professionalism and calm demeanor,” Wade said. “He was held in high esteem for being an open and funny and caring friend.” 

Dunckel was a “boxman” of the highest professional standards, said his wife. If he arrived at a client's home and sensed illegal activity was involved, he would walk off the job. If he deduced that the safe needed to be cracked as a result of a divorce or marital dispute, he would not open it. He'd never succumb to curiosity. 

“Once I've opened the safe, I try to studiously avoid scanning the contents,” Dunckel told the Chronicle. “It's bad enough to have plumbers come into your home, but when somebody opens up your inner sanctum and looks over the contents, it's very, very upsetting to a lot of people. And I don't blame them.” 

(SF Chronicle)

GINSBERG POINTS OUT THE PROBLEM [January 3, 2000]

by Jeff Costello

Ginsberg told me he was crazy, right off the bat. He had a penetrating glare in his eye and a slovenly appearance inappropriate for a musician or entertainer. But he had talent. He wrote good songs, could play almost anything on guitar or bass, and had won first place in the 5-string banjo competition in Champaign, Illinois.

I had been making the rounds of Boston booking agents and promoters, looking for a gig, when I found this note tacked to my door:

Jeff — I heard your band is breaking up. I like your guitar playing and would like to get together with you. I’ll be at the Catacombs tonight with a group called STUFF. Maybe you could come down.

— Steve Ginsberg

My band was splitting up. We had played most of the major clubs in town but we were going nowhere. We were a “top 40” band, we made a living “covering” other people’s music. It was 1967, the era of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and the acid-rock groups from the West Coast. We were panned by Jon Landau in CRAWDADDY: “…A competent, soulful club band, but they are not originators…” This review was a blanket dismissal in the emerging “hip” music scene.

The Catacombs was a coffeehouse three stories below the street. It was a hangout for hippies and students, a new and unfamiliar world to me. STUFF was on-stage. No one was dancing. Long-haired scruffy-looking people sat at small tables, drinking coffee and smoking. I got the impression that they were not so much listening to music as analyzing it.

Ginsberg was the band’s front man. He was tall and thin with long brown hair hanging in his face. In his ill-fitting corduroy sport jacket with patches at the elbows, plaid shirt and baggy khaki pants, he looked more like a mathematician than a singer. He was singing in a strong baritone voice and had a wicked grin. The song was called “Rapid Transit” — I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but Ginsberg played an unusual guitar figure which sounded like a subway rumbling through a station. 

I caught some of the words in the next tune. It was a cynical ode to America which began, “You’re a nation, you’re everyone / From Appalachia, to Pacific Sun…”

Every time he came around to that line, his fiendish grin lit up as he stressed the first four syllables: Urinaayy-tion…” I couldn’t help laughing. Ginsberg was ridiculing the seriousness of his own message.

After the set he came directly to my table to discuss putting a new band together. He was unhappy with STUFF.

“We could have a great band,” he said, “I know a singer, a chick from Chicago. She’s a little weird, but who cares? She’s got a great voice.”

“What do you mean, weird?” I asked.

“She’s a 23-year old black Catholic virgin. Daughter of a bank president.”

Jesus, that is weird,” I replied. Most of the people I knew in the music business were odd, but in the usual ways — drug addicts, homosexuals, ghoulish types who never saw daylight, a drummer who jacked off looking at car magazines…

“Yeah, it all depends on your perspective, eh?” he said. I thought about it and laughed. He laughed too. Suddenly he stopped laughing and looked around the room. He leaned across the table and looked me in the eye, very serious. “If we’re going to work together, I want you to know something. I’m crazy.”

Oh yeah? So what? I know plenty of people who think they’re nuts.”

“I’m not kidding,” he persisted, “I’ve been to three shrinks. You oughta see the drugs they give me.”

“Do you take them?”

“Only when I’m desperate.”

“Well, Ginsberg, you don’t know some of the characters I’ve played in bands with. Never mind the crap, let’s get together and mess around with your music. I think I can add something.”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “How about tomorrow night?”

I went to Ginsberg’s apartment the next night. Diane the black Catholic virgin was there. She and Ginsberg played and sang some original songs, and I filled in between vocal phrases on guitar. We all liked the sound and decided then and there to start a new band. All we needed was a drummer. We wound up getting the one who liked car magazines.

Ginsberg offered me a spare room, and I took it. We could work on the music whenever we wanted. And the rent was cheap. Diane came by to practice every night and the music progressed.

Diane and Ginsberg had both come to Chicago to go to Boston University, and dropped out. Diane wanted to concentrate on her singing.

“Why did you quit school?” I asked Ginsberg one night, after having casually taken some LSD.

“I’m too crazy and disorganized,” he answered. “They all look like zombies and robots — all of them. No, the professors are worse. Cranking out the same tired shit, year after year. They’re already dead, but they’re afraid to lie down. I did learn something, though. If you ask REAL questions, really challenge them, you’re considered a crank or a troublemaker.”

“What questions?” I asked.

“The only questions that matter — Why, and How?”

“Why and how WHAT?”

“Oh, God, I feel so fucking INSANE, I can’t STAND it. Why do I have to be so goddamned SENSITIVE?”

“Hey, you’re not the only sensitive person in the world, Ginsberg. I’ve always been called oversensitive. Even in kindergarten the teacher called me Sulky Joe…”

“Kindergarten, HAH! You think you’re sensitive because of THAT?”

“No, not just because of that. I just meant…”

“You just meant NOTHING. NOBODY’s as sensitive as I am. That’s why I’m so NUTS. Christ, sometimes I can’t STAND it.”

“Yeah. Okay. So we’re all sensitive, but you’re the MOST sensitive. You win.”

“It’s not a JOKE, you know. The professors, they’re not only insensitive, they’re STUPID, most of them.”

“Oh yeah,” I remembered, “What about the QUESTIONS?” 

Ginsberg paced around  the room. “The problem is, they’re afraid of the real questions because they don’t have the ANSWERS.”

“WHAT questions?”

“The questions of EXISTENCE, you fucking idiot. WHY do we exist? HOW is it that we exist? Why is life mostly SUFFERING?”

I had not considered life to be mostly suffering, nor had I agonized much over the Problem of Existence. I wanted to be rich and famous, and fuck a lot of women. But Ginsberg was forcing me to look at the Larger Picture. I began to feel uncomfortable and disoriented. “Well, I…”

“There you go, you just said it. That’s part of the Problem.”

“What did I say?”

“There it is again. You said ‘I’ — what do you think ‘I’ is? What IS the ‘I”? WHERE is the ‘I’? In your head? In your heart? In your LIVER? Can you point at it?”

“I never thought about it.” Saying the word “I” felt ridiculous, sounded absurd and one-dimensional. Maybe this was what insanity was all about…

“Maybe we find out when we’re dead,” “I” offered.

“Just like that, huh? Find out when we’re dead?” He was sneering now. “Wouldn’t THAT be convenient. We die and we find out the answer to the whole thing. Don’t kid yourself, it can’t be that simple.” 

I felt weak, drained, overwhelmed. “So this is why people go insane,” I said feebly.

“And that’s not the worst of it,” he continued relentlessly. “Death is not the end, you don’t get out of it that easily. You don’t get out of it at all. We’re TRAPPED in EXISTENCE — for ETERNITY.” His eyes radiated vile darkness, an aura of despair.

“You thought maybe I was JOKING when I said I was nuts. Well, now you know WHY. YOU’RE nuts too. EVERY FUCKING HUMAN BEING on EARTH is insane. Some of them just don’t KNOW it. They don’t know about IT. They aren’t aware of the PROBLEM. People actually think their piddly-ass little lives and jobs and families are IMPORTANT. NOTHING is important.”

I had to lie down. All my energy was evacuating the bones, muscles and tendons, fleeing in desperation to the Panic Center in my head, gathering force like a tropical storm, spinning out of control.

“What’s the matter, Jeff? You don’t look so good.”

“Does it always feel like this? Does it go away?”

“No, it never goes away, but it kind of recedes. Trouble is, now you’ve got to DO something about it. Some people join a church, and let somebody else take responsibility for the Problem. Land of the Living Dead, that’s what I call it. Then there’s the Eastern stuff — Zen, Kundalini Yoga, Buddhism… it’s all concerned with the same thing. Here, listen to this.”

He put on a record — the Moody Blues’ “In Search of the Lost Chord” — a rock and roll band singing about the Problem, or the Big Issue, as I came to think of it. It was comforting to know there were musicians out there dealing with IT.

The Terror receded in a week or so, but I would never forget it. The band lasted about a year, until Ginsberg got into Transcendental Meditation and went on the road with Maharishi. Last I heard, they were in Mallorca.

Maybe he was crazy.