The Big Plan

My plan was to write a big-hit book like “On the Road,” play pop music and have a normal life. Not a great plan, but having made the crazy trip from Boston to SF, getting coffee up on Haight St. seemed like a good next step. As I headed down our apartment stairs, a handsome Jamaica guy, painting our vaulted hallway, greeted me from above. I offered him some Sensimilla from Humboldt County, and he came down for a break. We lit up, and he told me he was a “hood famous” guitar player, but laughed, “Look at me now. I’m a painter!… By the way, if you need work, King Rasta, in the restaurant downstairs has odd jobs and pays cash, if you can find him!” So I headed down there to wait for the King, and sip sweet Blue Mountain coffee, but he yelled a final thing, echoing through the San San Frisco cavernous hallway, “The West is the best, but the East holds the lease.”