Max’s Memories by David Loehr

In 1968 I was attending Parsons School of Design in New York. I would hang out in the back room at Max’s in the evenings where I first met Andy Warhol. Interesting to note that my art teachers at Parsons didn’t think it was a very good idea to be hanging out with Andy Warhol and his crowd, saying that he was an unsavory character and that he attracted “strange” people. I spent many evenings with him there in the back room.

Some of the others that I remember seeing there were Nico, Taylor Mead, Bridget Polk, Joe Dallesandro, Paul Morrissey, Viva, and Ultra Violet. One night there was a birthday party for Tiger Lily. I was sitting at the table with them and when the birthday cake was set down someone said that there was LSD in it. I didn’t have any. Brigit Polk was there and she took out a small box with her works in it, pulled her stretch pants down and shot up in her hip right there at the table.

I remember seeing Valerie Solanis going from table to table selling her mimeographed copies of S.C.U.M (Society For Cutting Up Men) manifesto. Copies were twenty five cents for women and a dollar for men. Not long after that she stepped off the elevator at The Factory and shot Andy.

One night Ultra Violet drove me home to my small West 39th Street apartment in her Corvette. I sat on the console in the middle and Andy sat in the passenger seat.

During the days I would spend time at The Factory. I remember seeing dailies of “Lonesome Cowboys” there, sitting on the couch with Viva, Joe, Andy, Paul Morrissey and others. Andy took a few snapshots of me sitting on the window sill there at Union Square, and I often wonder where those photos are now. Around that same time Andy gave me a small beaded hippy type ring which I still have.

The most time that I spent with Andy was the week prior to his shooting. One day I rode alone with him in a taxi way uptown to some lighting factory where he was working on a neon light art piece which apparently never got finished. Riding back downtown the speeding taxi ran a red light, slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a stop sideways into the middle of the intersection, just nearly hitting another car. We made a stop at his house which I think was on Madison Avenue. I went with him into the house, but I wasn’t allowed past the entrance foyer. In the room there were huge carved and painted wooden clowns, carousal horses and piles of 35mm film cans. At the time Andy’s mother was living there in the house with him.

Two nights before Andy was shot I went with him and Fred Hughes to a small party somewhere I believe in Chelsea. It was a small two room apartment and there were a dozen or so people there. I sat with Andy on the bed. The next day I took the bus home to Massachusetts and then the day after that Valerie Solanis showed up and shot Andy. It was all over the newspapers and the next day Bobby Kennedy was shot and everyone forgot about Andy.

On another night at Max’s I was sitting alone at a small table and Janis Joplin stumbled drunk into the room cursing about something, bumped into my table and spilled my coffee. I don’t ever remember having more than a few dollars on me and mostly drank coffee and ate the free chick peas. Occasionally I would have a burger and a beer or two.

I remember being in the hall by the now famous phone booths when Eric Emerson came up to me and said something about going into the phone booth with him. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I had the feeling he was trying to pick me up.

On another night around 1971 I spotted a long haired Mick Jagger looking guy sitting directly in the middle of the room against the back wall. He was alone and I ended up sitting with him. His name was Rocky Roads and he remained one of my closest friends for the rest of his life. In 1972 Rocky and I joined up with Jack and Hibiscus formerly of the San Francisco theater group The Cockettes and became members of their new group, The Angels of Light. We performed for two weeks in November of 1974 in “Gossamer Wings” at The Jane Street Theater in New York and I have 80 color slides from those shows.

Shortly after that Rocky was living on Saint Marks place with Jimmy Baron, Jimmy Jackson and Scott Markman and was writing a play for Jackie Curtis entitled “Justice Sterling”. Jackie ended up not doing the play and Rocky took the lead role. The play opened in 1974 and ran for a couple of weekends at the 13th Street playhouse. The play was about a mysterious group of women (all played by guys) who would have these weekly secret meetings. There were a group of gangsters involved one of which was played by Billy Rafford. One of the gangsters dressed up as a woman to sneak into the party and spiked the punch bowl with LSD. Shortly all of the characters were apparently tripping and none of the dialog was cohesive. That’s when I appeared on stage as Jesus Christ, as if they were seeing “God” on acid. The play was hilarious and I regret that there are no photos or film of it that I know of. During that production I met my Partner Lenny who worked on costumes. Lenny and I have now been together since 1979.

I now operate The James Dean Gallery Museum Exhibit which first opened in Dean’s hometown of Fairmount, Indiana in 1988.

- Copyright David Loehr 2005