Jeff Knowlton, Captain of Industry

Ask anyone that attended a party at the Harwood House and they will tell you, I always had a 6.5 oz. Coke bottle in my hand. Always. You couldn’t miss it. Fred Astaire always danced with Ginger, Roy Rogers always rode trigger. Me, I was always seen with a 6.5 oz. Coke bottle.

My supply was just down the street on Summerlin, between Central and Pine. I would show up with a half dozen, drink a few and hand the rest out. At some point later on, I would run out of Coke, other people would run out of beer and a trip to the 7-11 was arranged. Pat Greene or Matt Gorney, Carolyn Watson, the Flying Wiatroski brothers or someone else would pile in my car. I don’t drink so I always drove us.

This 7-11 was famous. Everybody went, even if you didn’t need anything. You went for the woman that worked the register and the freaks that showed up late at night. I’m sure she had a name, but no one knew it. I can tell
you that she was black and somewhere between 40 and 50 years of age, and she didn’t take shit from anyone. Period. Not the Sterno bums that passed out in the parking lot, not the surfers, not the spike and safety pin
wearing punks, not anyone.

She tolerated us I think, not because we were as polite as we could be and still remain cool, but because we were in a sense, in on it with her. The surfers, the flophouse bums, the punks, they were idiots, a joke, entertainment to us hipsters. At least we believed that, believed that we were different. Maybe in the end, we bought stuff and didn’t fuck up the store as much as anyone else during the night shift, didn’t make any
trouble for her, so we were cool and thats all.

At the party we all talked about her, had our favorite stories; how she threw some stinking drunken bum out. You never made the mistake of talking back to her like he did. Not in her store. You never wanted to be on the
receiving end of that verbal beat down. Tyler Perry’s Medea doesn’t hold a candle to this woman.

Or the time I asked her if I could use the restroom. It was no problem. We were cool. A few minutes later as I was buying another six of the 6.5oz Cokes, a bunch of stoned and drunk surfers wanted to use the restroom.
“Its outta order,” she told them. As they walked away she looked at me and said, “I aint letting them throw up all over my bathroom and piss on the toilet seat.” She fucking cracked me up right there as I handed her my money.

No party was complete without that trip; a real pilgrimage.

The last time I remember being at the 7-11, speakers had been installed in the parking lot and Muzak(tm) wafted through the air. Nothing repels stoned surfers, drunken flophouse bums and anarchist punks like Muzak(tm).

The area became known as Thornton Park and on occasion you could spot Willem Dafoe with his parents eating more or less across the street at the Thornton Park Cafe.

They aren’t the kind of people that piss on the toilet seat at 1:15 in the  morning.

Jeff Knowlton, today, somewhere in California. Actually, I think this picture is in Cali. Jeff has installed some public art all over the world so this could be anywhere. If I saw this guy on the side of the road, I’d give him money.

Pat Greene, in his usual habitat, surrounded by hot groupies yet strangely unaffected by them. Pat ran for mayor of Orlando on some kind of party ticket. He got news time but I don’t know how many votes he got. Orlando needs him.

Marty Murphy had an apartment around the corner from Harwood. He’d just moved here from Chicago and was throwing some pretty good parties. I went to one and we hit it off, drumming and rolling Femi jewelry until the wees.

Marty had professional congas, a weird art bench made from railroad ties that people could work on from all four sides, a ton of art supplies, and great taste in wine and booze. He was smart as fuck and funny and his Chicago attitude–direct, practical, intelligent–added a new vibe to the neighborhood. When word got out that he was throwing a halloween party, Harwood House went.

I don’t remember what other people were wearing. But Pat Greene and I decided to attend as Siamese Death Wheats. Somehow we shared a leisure suit, put on black face, and poufed our hair up into sad approximations of afros. We were, of course, the hit of the party and Marty nearly shit himself with delight.

Marty and I locked in quick and our friendship developed into a writing partnership, a shared investigation into the exoteric world, and a brotherhood. He remains oone of my truest and closest friends, even though he’s moved to a palatial retreat in the outcountry of Portland, Or.

I married his sister, Colleen, so we Marty is fortunate enough to call me friend, brother, and brother-in-law. And his daughter, Marya, is living with me while she attends the Chicago Institute of Art.

The picture above, taken in 2005, is of Marty in his drumming get up doing a gig at a gallery opening in Winter Park, FL. Marty and his wife, Brigha (“Bree”), and their dance troupe, were favorites at the Orlando Fringe Festival for years.

I think Alda is wearing a wig though Carolyn reminded me that Alda got extensions around that time. The look on her face, however, is authentic.

I swear I am not grabbing my crotch, nor am I farting. I was listening to some drunken idiot call me a liberal douche bag.