DUNCAN HANNAH
September 1970. Eisenhower High School. I can’t get into the teen spirit of the Hopkins High pep rally. Purple Power! Youth Fever! Sieg Heil! Makes me sick.
I put out a comic book with some other freaks that is sold in the hallways for a dime. The Daily Planet. My mom gets a call from a concerned parent who’d said she’d already had enough trouble with her son without this pornography inciting him to take drugs. Lady on the phone said I had to be on drugs to do the awful things to her son that I did. (IN A COMIC BOOK!?!?) Mom’s scared and shaking. Poor dear. She weakens and tells me I’m missing out on the best years of my life.
But meanwhile, my art teacher Vern says I’ve got it, just do it harder, that I’m on the verge of greatness. He says I MUST devote myself to art, carry a sketchbook everywhere.
Concerts:
Savoy Brown
Poco
Johnny Winter And (with Rick Derringer)
Youngbloods
Grateful Dead
Elton John
Eddie Harris
Flying Burrito Brothers
Faces (w. Rod Stewart)
John Sebastian
Leo Kottke
Neil Young
Al Kooper
Taj Mahal
Elvin Jones
I check in in homeroom each morning before walking across the golf course back home again. The joys of “Modular Scheduling,” which basically means I don’t have to spend much time in school. I usually have the house to myself as dad is downtown being a corporate lawyer and mom is off being an interior decorator. Anyhow, at 9 a.m, I sit behind Laurie Gold who is a heavy-lidded slim Jewish girl with velvet pants and no bra. A spoiled and sultry rock chick whose dad owns a chain of jewelry stores. She drives a GTO and always has good hash. She’s continually looking down to see if her tits are arranged right, then moistening her lips. We have sex together once in a while, but I don’t see her as girlfriend material. She’s got a phony way about her. She’s a real snob and looks down on all these high school jocks and squares. Except me. I’m the chosen one . . . she says she cares about me but I’m impossible to communicate with. She says I have highly developed intuitive skills, including ESP!
“Why don’t you come over and treat me like a whore,” she whispers over my desk, and giggles. “My parents are in Florida, and I’ve got some good weed.” She’s on the pill. Wants to get some use out of it. It’s very tempting but I have a hard time objectifying girls that I basically don’t like very much. October 4th. Janis Joplin was found dead this morning. I got high with her and Big Brother when they played the Guthrie. Brought a couple buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken to their dressing room. They were so skanky. The boys said, “Look Janis, your chicken is here!” all laughing at the sweet young fellow in his blue blazer and gray flannel uniform. Janis’s eyes were dancing all over me, smackin’ her lips at the meal before her, ME! She was playin’ the horny chicken-hawk, swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels, making rude remarks. Nobody touched the chicken, but we stood in a circle in the cramped quarters and passed a joint around. I was trying to act cool, but the dope was SO strong that I came out of some kind of time-warp to see that they were all laughing at me as if I were a choir boy they had just corrupted. She came over and comforted me, smelling of patchouli oil, her feather boa tickling my nose. I blushed. I felt like a real hayseed.
Fifteen minutes later she was on stage, stamping her foot, sweating, screaming. I thought she was tragic even then. Saw her over a year later without Big Brother, liked her even less. Too much angst. Gone now.
Girls: Where is my loony rock ’n’ roll queen? I scour the yellow-tiled school hallways filled with zombie-vibes looking for my soulmate. I need some more carnal knowledge. I, so I want someone like Anita Pallenberg or Genevieve Waite or Susannah York or Monica Vitti. There’s a girl in my theater class named Rachel who’s cool, but she’s got a boyfriend already. Although once she did pull me into the dark maroon velvet folds of the stage curtain and we made out for a minute or two. She’s got a dark mane of hair and interesting eyebrows, braless tight t-shirts and hip-huggers, high-heel leather boots. A vixen for sure. Haughty attitude. Our teacher is a wire-rimmed liberal who plays with his beard constantly. Always yacking about Ionesco and the experimental theater. Us kids write a nonsense play called that came out of improv. Totally stupid but our teacher twiddles his beard and stares at us intently like it’s genius. He has a great investment in being “with it.” He’s a creep.
