Vancouver 1974
I was trying to get back home to Minneapolis. Someone told me he knew of a guy with a van who was also going there, so I asked him for a ride. He said he was taking a girl along and didn’t want any other passengers. Then someone suggested hopping a freight train, so I hitchhiked to Seattle and found a train going east. In the middle of the night the train stopped. After waiting a long time for it to get moving, I looked out the door and saw that the boxcar I was in had been uncoupled and was just sitting there on a siding. I found another train, which headed east over the Cascade Mountains. Waking in the night, I looked out the door and saw huge jagged snow-capped peaks under a black sky filled with brilliant stars. The next day I had a pleasant ride on a flatcar across eastern Washington. That night going over the Continental Divide it got really cold, so I put on all the clothes I had. I went to sleep but when the train went over a rough section of track, I awoke being thrown up in the air and then slammed onto the steel floor of the boxcar. The next morning the train pulled into Livingston, Montana. I looked out and saw a restaurant, went over and ordered a big breakfast. As I sat there eating, I saw the train start to move and felt glad I wasn’t on it. I walked out to the freeway and tried to hitch a ride but there was hardly any traffic, so I came back into town and found out about another train leaving that night. To kill time, I went in to a bar, sat down and ordered a beer. I glanced over at the next table and there sat the guy who had refused to give me a ride in Vancouver. He told me that the girl had decided not to come along and that I could have a ride the rest of the way to Minneapolis.
Casablanca 1972
I was traveling with two other guys in a Volkswagen van. It was Christmas Eve and we had just set up camp on the Atlantic Ocean when I took off by myself to look around. Wandering down the beach, I came to an offshore island. Alongside the stepping stones leading to the island, a woman sat on the ground selling candles. I bought some because we always needed candles for light. Once on the island, I saw small rooms with curtains in the doorways. Inside were groups of people eating and talking. Reaching the ocean side, I saw a young couple. The guy was holding a live rooster with its legs tied together. While the girl watched, he threw the chicken onto the rocks below, then went down and retrieved it, brought it back up and threw it down again. Next I came to a huge arched doorway and could hear low mumbling sounds coming from inside. As I started to enter, a hand grabbed my arm to keep me from going in. I walked back to camp, and my friends looked really scared. When I asked them what was wrong, they told me that a group of kids led by an older man had come wandering down the beach begging for food, money and cigarettes. They were very interested in our camping equipment, and my friends decided that they were checking us out so they could come back later and rob us. Realizing we were in danger if we stayed there, we broke camp and drove into town, eventually finding the official campground. It was surrounded by a concrete block wall topped with broken glass and the gate was closed and locked. We honked and honked, finally waking up the gatekeeper, who reluctantly let us in.
Minneapolis 1978
Andy Warhol was sitting in the window of a downtown bookstore autographing copies of his latest book and anything else people handed him, like shopping bags and Campbell’s soup cans. When I got to the head of the line, I stuck out my hand and told him that if he signed it, I would never wash it again. He was taken aback, then his assistant suggested that he sign my fingernail instead. He wrote AW on my fingernail. The incident was mentioned in both of Minneapolis’ newspapers.
New York City 1973
I had been given the job of alphabetizing and typing the guest list to an exclusive reception for Joseph Beuys, a German artist who was visiting the United States for the first time. I was told that I could put my name on the list. As a joke, I also included the name of Marcel Duchamp, a French artist who had lived in New York and whose works dealing with language and identity had made a big impression on me. When I arrived at the reception that evening, there at the door stood a Pinkerton’s guard holding the list I had typed. I told him my name was Marcel Duchamp. He found the name on the list, crossed it off, and let me in
Edina 1984
I was working as a courier and had just dropped off a package. As I was getting back into my car, I looked across the street and there stood Prince astride a purple motorcycle surrounded by a group of black guys. I found a pen and sheet of paper, got out of my car and walked over. As I approached, the black guys parted. Handing Prince the paper and pen, I asked him, “You feel like writing down your name?” He took the paper and pen, spent a long time writing, then handed them back to me without looking up. He had written Love God - Prince, with lots of curlicues. I said, “Thanks, man”, wanting to act cool, thanking him not only for the autograph, but also for the enjoyment his music had given me. He replied in a deep, barely audible voice, “You're welcome.”
Minneapolis 1975
I was visiting an art gallery on the top floor of a department store in downtown Minneapolis. On display was an exhibition of reproductions of ‘readymade’ sculptures by Marcel Duchamp. One of the objects consisted of a ball of twine pressed between two metal plates and was entitled With Hidden Noise. The artist had instructed his patron to put something inside and not tell anyone what it was, giving it an air of mystery. There were two little black boys in the gallery; I saw one of them pick it up and shake it so that it rattled. He then pushed the ball of string to the side and something fell out. The other kid yelled, “It's a bean!”
Edina 1985
I was riding my bike around a suburban industrial area one warm evening when I heard music coming from one of the buildings. Walking up to an overhead door, I noticed a crack that I could peek through. I looked in and could see into a big room piled high with shipping crates, amplifiers and instrument cases. A drum machine started, then an electric piano, then Prince’s high voice singing Chain of Fools. The music stopped abruptly and Prince came out into the middle of the room, wearing only cut-off long underwear and kneepads. Looking really nervous and angry, he marched toward the door I was standing behind, made an about-face, and disappeared into an office on the other side of the room. I ran around the building, only to see a white Thunderbird speeding out of the parking lot.
Eden Prairie 1978
I dreamed I was swimming down the Mississippi River where it flows through a gorge dividing Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I came upon a group of kids and realized it was a school class swimming with their teacher. After talking with them for a while, I continued swimming down the river. I passed under a railroad bridge, then began rising up out of the water until I was flying down the valley. Reaching the Lake Street bridge, I landed on top of the bluff on the Minneapolis side. The next morning the dream was still vivid in my mind and I got the idea of going to the spot where I had landed. I hitchhiked there, wondering why I had come and what I was supposed to do next. I started walking west on Lake Street, came to a used car lot, saw a red Mercury Capri for $400, walked in and bought it. It was the first car I had ever owned. A week later, I drove west, ending up in Vancouver, where I lived for the next five years.
Eden Prairie 1969
It was my last month of High School, and I was goofing around in the Physics storeroom with some friends. One of them called for me to look at him. He was holding a prism in front of his eyes that made them look upside-down. This struck me as so funny that I started laughing hysterically. I was standing next a big plate glass window and as I rocked back and forth, I bumped it with my shoulder and it shattered.
London 1976
I was staying in a cheap hotel - in exile for the Bicentennial. The weather had been unusually hot and dry for England. I went out for a walk, stopping to buy a bag of raisins and nuts, eating it as I walked along. Coming across the National Army Museum, I went in and got into a long conversation with an old guard who was telling me stories about the items on display. I began feeling itchy and started to scratch my palm on the tip of an artillery shell standing on the floor next to me. Feeling really nervous and hot, I excused myself and went outside. I found myself in a formal garden surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence. Coming to the end facing the Thames River, I climbed over and started walking along the Chelsea Embankment. By now my whole body was itching terribly and breaking out in a red rash. I was scratching and sweating, feeling faint; almost passing out. I saw a pub, went in and gulped down glass after glass of lemonade. Feeling a little better, but still really weak and dizzy, I went back outside and continued walking along the river. After a while I came to the Tate Gallery, went in and was immediately surrounded by a lobby full of little boys in school uniforms running around, yelling and fighting. I escaped the lobby, only to find myself in a room filled with paintings of twisted, tortured figures by Francis Bacon that looked exactly the way I was feeling. I left the museum, found the nearest Underground station, rode the train back to my hotel and took a long, cold shower.
Edina 1966
I was an acolyte at my church. There were supposed to be two of us but the other guy hadn’t shown up, so I had to light all six candles by myself. As the service began with the organ softly playing and everyone watching, I came out and began to light the first candle high above the altar. I held the flame up to it but, when I took it away, the candle wasn’t lit. I tried again. Again it refused to light. I eventually managed to light only three of the candles, and was very embarrassed. When the service was over, we took the candles down to see what had gone wrong and noticed that the wicks were smashed down into the wax. Whoever was supposed to have trimmed the wicks to make them stand up, hadn’t.
Avignon 1972
I was standing on the side of the road hitchhiking, trying to get a ride to Spain. There was almost no traffic. I had been there all morning and was getting discouraged. So I decided that I would conclude my trip to Europe - take the train to Luxembourg and fly home. On the train going north that night, I realized that it was a mistake to cut my trip short. When the train stopped at the border of Luxembourg and I looked out the window and saw a train on the next track marked Avignon, I got on that one and rode back south, arriving in Avignon twelve hours after I had left. The next morning I returned to the same spot and stuck out my thumb. This time there was lots of traffic. (I hadn’t realized the day before that it was Sunday.) A couple of rides and one accident later, I was almost to the border of Spain. A big white Mercedes drove by, turned around and pulled up on the opposite shoulder. The driver rolled down his window and asked if I spoke English. Then he said that he was going all the way to Barcelona. I got in and we drove off down the road. After introducing himself, he asked me what my name was. I answered, “Michael”. I had never thought of using that name before, and still have no idea why I said it. I was known to people that I met for about five years after that as “Michael”.
Morocco 1972
I had been driving along with two other guys down the Atlantic coast after crossing the Straits of Gibraltar when we pulled off the road to relax. I didn't feel like just lying around, so I took off walking across the hills. Soon a young shepherd boy appeared. I asked him where I could get same hashish. He pointed somewhere off toward the horizon and motioned for me to follow him. After we had been walking for quite a while, he stopped and again pointed to something. All I could see was a cluster of huge white boulders with palm trees growing among them. As we got closer, I could see it was a village. When we got there, a bunch of naked kids rushed up led by a young man wearing western clothes. The shepherd boy told them all about finding me, then I followed them into the town. We came to a whitewashed wall where a row of old men in robes crouched, passing a long pipe. They smiled and motioned for me to join them. When the pipe was passed to me, I inhaled and held my breath. All of a sudden my lungs exploded and I started coughing violently, almost passing out. Finally catching my breath, I looked up to see a row of old men’s brown wrinkled faces in pointy hoods with mouths full of rotten teeth pointing at me and laughing madly. (I later found out that they had been smoking strong Turkish tobacco mixed with a little marijuana.)
Bellingham 1974
I was sitting in a cubicle in the music library of Western Washington State University listening through headphones to a record of Bach organ music. Closing my eyes, I imagined that I was in the cathedral where the music had been recorded. The music began with very low notes and I was standing on the floor. Then the notes started getting higher and higher and I began rising up off the floor. As the notes went up the scale, I found myself floating up into the air inside the steeple. Finally the music was the very highest notes on the organ and I was way up near the top. I noticed that I had become just a head. Then I saw other heads floating around up there too. One of them noticed me and said, “Oh, look, a new face!”
Minneapolis 1958
I was in the hospital having my tonsils removed. While under anesthesia, I dreamed that I was looking out over the desert at a radio tower in the distance; on top of the tower was a flashing red light. Every time the light flashed, a loud, echoing voice repeated the word Hector. I always remembered that dream, and wondered what it meant. Many years later, I looked up Hector in a mythology book and discovered that he was a warrior in one of the Trojan Wars who had been killed by a spear piercing his throat.
Kansas City 1970
It was a hot day and I had been driving barefoot. I got into town and realized I was lost, so I parked and went into a store to ask for directions. When I came back outside my car was gone - I had parked in a no-parking zone and my car had been towed. I found out where my car was and started walking there in my bare feet. The sidewalk was littered with broken glass. I soon realized that I was in a pretty bad section of town. Coming upon a bunch of young black kids, I kidded around with them for a while then kept on walking. I felt something whoosh by the back of my head and turned around to see one of the kids holding a broken tree limb and smiling at me. I started walking away really fast. Then rocks and pieces of brick came flying by. I took off running as fast as I could, then stopped and looked back. They were all standing there laughing at me.
Wales 1976
I had just gotten off the train and was looking for a bed and breakfast. Walking along, I heard birds calling, looked up and saw seagulls flying high above. They started diving down at me, just barely missing my head. I was getting really scared. Then I noticed two men far ahead walking toward me and hoped that maybe they could explain the gulls’ alarming behavior. But when they finally reached me they just walked by, one of them calling out cheerfully as he passed, “Mind your head!”
New York City 1973
I was visiting a couple of friends in their apartment overlooking Central Park. They had gotten into an argument-the guy was trying to get the girl to wash out the bathtub so they could take a bath together. It was around two in the morning; I thought it was probably time to leave. As I began walking back to where I was staying, I got the idea to take a shortcut through the park. Coming to some stone steps going up a hill, I climbed them and entered Belvedere Castle, a ‘folly’ perched on Vista Rock overlooking the park. I noticed a guy sitting on a low wall, walked over and we got into a conversation about what a beautiful night it was, with all the stars and city lights and everything. All of a sudden he stuck his hand in his jacket, saying he had a gun. I didn't act scared; just asked him what kind of gun he had. He said it was a .38. I jokingly put my hand inside my jacket and said I had a gun too. He looked surprised and asked what kind of gun I had. I said it was a .37. Then, as if remembering he was trying to scare me, he said, “Listen, how do you know I'm not a homicidal maniac?” I replied, “I don't know...I guess you could be... Are you?” Suddenly he reached out at me; I put up my hands in defense. He loosely grabbed some of my fingers, then threw them down disgustedly and said, “You see those steps you came up? I want you to walk back down those steps and I never want to see you again.”
Chicago 1973
I was staying with some friends and didn't have a key to their house. One night I arrived and found the door locked. I could hear real loud music playing inside. I knocked and knocked but nobody came to the door. The music was so loud that they couldn't hear me. I started kicking the door. Finally somebody heard me and let me in. Then I realized that the song that had been playing was Can’t Ya Hear Me Knockin’? by the Rolling Stones.
Chicago 1973
One morning I got up, went to the bathroom and was surprised to see that my urine was pink. A little later, I started getting a pain in my back. It got so bad that I staggered to the nearest hospital and, after waiting forever in the emergency room, found out that I had a kidney stone. As soon as they decided to admit me to the hospital, the stone passed and I was just fine, but they wouldn't release me until I had some ‘tests’. A friend of mine had tickets to the opening night of Bob Dylan’s comeback tour at Chicago Stadium and wanted to know if I would be out of the hospital in time to go with her. I thought of just walking out, but had lost my shoes in the emergency room. I was finally released just in time to make it to the concert. As I approached the gate, a kid came up and asked if I needed tickets. I said I already had some and, in fact, had tickets to every concert. Then I noticed a woman listening in on me fooling the kid and recognized her as the actress Susan Anspach, whom I had just seen in Five Easy Pieces and Blume in Love. We began talking and I became interested in all the different layers of black clothing and silver jewelry she was wearing. She kept peeling them back, showing me more and more layers deeper in. Suddenly a guy called to her and she ran away.
New York City 1975
I was walking around Manhattan, and had just bought a foil-wrapped chocolate turkey when I got the idea of looking up Andy Warhol and giving it to him. I found him in the phone book listed under Andy Warhol Enterprises, which was about a block away on Union Square. After writing a note and attaching it to the turkey, I went to the building and was waiting for the elevator when a guy walked up with a gallon paint can in each hand. We got off on the same floor. When he was buzzed through the security door I opened it for him, then just walked in. There was no receptionist to leave the turkey with, so I wandered around, finally coming to some French doors leading into a huge high-ceilinged room. One wall was all windows, and at one end sat Andy behind a big ornate antique desk. I walked over, handed him the turkey, and said, “Hi, Andy! Here's a present for you.” He took it, saying, “Gee, thanks...and there's a note, too!” (I thought that if I had known I would be giving it to him in person, I wouldn’t have needed to write a note.) As he sat there reading, I looked around. Sunlight streamed through the windows onto large canvases lying on the floor that he was working on - portraits of rich and famous people. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just turned around and walked out.
Minneapolis 1978
I was attending a performance by Laurie Anderson at Walker Art Center. Sitting in the front row, I looked up at her on stage while she played strange music and told strange stories. She seemed like an angel speaking directly to me. When the show ended, she just stood there on stage looking like she didn'’t know what to do next. I got up, shook her hand and told her how much I had enjoyed the performance. She said she was giving a workshop the following Saturday. I went to it but arrived late. The last slide was on the screen - a double exposure of a bridge and a rainbow. When I apologized for missing the workshop, she said she was going up to the cafeteria with some people and that I was welcome to come along. On the way up, the elevator was packed, so we had to stand really close together. Handing her a book that included some of her stories, I asked for her autograph. I showed her some scratchy drawings I had done in the book while riding in a semi and she told me about an artist she knew that made drawings by tying pencils to tree branches and holding paper up to them as the wind blew. When the elevator doors opened and everyone headed for the cafeteria line, I realized that was all the time I would have alone with her. Trying to figure out why she felt so familiar, I asked when her birthday was. When she replied, “June fifth”, I was astounded. That date is exactly two weeks before my birthday, the same as my great grandmother’s (my mother’s mother’s mother) and also the same as my first lover.
British Columbia 1979
I was hiking down the trail from my shack in the woods toward town. As I came out into a clearing near a house trailer, a huge white German Shepherd attacked me, going for my neck and knocking me over backwards. His owner heard the commotion, came out of the trailer and called off the dog. I got to my feet and found my jugular vein still intact, but my earlobe was almost severed and hanging down and blood was gushing down my side. The dog’s owner drove me to the hospital where I had my earlobe sewn back on.
Olympic Peninsula 1974
I was a member of a tree-planting crew working in a clear-cut area. Every night it poured rain, soaking our sleeping bags. Before I arrived, one of the guys had shot an elk, butchered it and piled the meat on the ground behind the cook tent, covered by its hide. Although slightly rotten, it was the tenderest, most flavorful meat I’d ever eaten. We had it with oatmeal for breakfast, in sandwiches for lunch, and with rice for dinner. But that was all we ate - not a very good diet. The work was really strenuous, walking along in a row across the mountainside climbing over the ‘slash’ (branches left over from logging) and planting a pine seedling every few steps. There were still patches of snow on the ground and some of the guys higher up the slope would stop, make snowballs and throw them down at the unsuspecting workers below. When I looked up to see where the snowballs were coming from, I was looking straight into the sun, with snowballs coming out of it. After a few days of this, another guy and I went to the boss and told him we were quitting. He said we wouldn’t get paid for the work we’d done, but we left anyway.
New York City 1975
I was walking in Central Park when I came upon a film crew shooting a commercial with a couple in a horse-drawn carriage. After watching for a while, I left the park and was walking along the sidewalk by the Plaza Hotel when I came to a crowd of people looking at something on the ground. Making my way to the front, I saw a fire hydrant with water pouring out of it into a caved-in section of the sidewalk. Swimming around in the pool that had formed was a huge goldfish. Someone said they had seen the fish come out of the fire hydrant. People were vehemently arguing about what to do with it. Recalling a pond that I had just passed back in the park, I reached down, grabbed the fish and started running back toward it. People were yelling at me to stop, but I just kept going. I got to the park and was running down a hill toward the pond when the carriage I had seen earlier went by. The woman saw me running carrying the fish and screamed. When I reached the edge of the pond, I threw the fish in and watched as it swam away.
Mexico 1975
I was traveling on the Aguila Azteca, the train from Laredo, Texas to Guadalajara, Mexico. When it stopped at San Luis Potosi, I got off to look around the town. The street was deserted, then suddenly it was full of people running around screaming and yelling. I dashed back to the station and jumped onto the train just as it was pulling out. The headline in the Guadalajara paper the next day read: Dos Explosiones-Dos Muertos (Two Explosions-Two Dead).
Eden Prairie 1969
In the winter, we turned our tennis court into a skating rink where I played hockey with a bunch of tough guys from my high school. I was between the goal and a big guy who could barely skate and wore his skates really loose, running down the ice on his insteps. He slapped the puck, it flew up into the air and hit me on the forehead. I was knocked unconscious, lying on the ice bleeding with a cut so deep you could see my skull. The first thing I remember hearing as I came to was somebody yelling, “Throw some dirt in it!”
Maine 1971
I was hiking in Acadia National Park and came to a cliff rising up from the water's edge. I started to climb up, and after a while I reached the point where I couldn't find a way to continue up, but couldn’t go back down either. I started to think that I might fall off. Eventually I found a way to keep going up. Toward the top, the cliff became less vertical and I was able to pull myself up by trees growing out of the rock. Reaching the top, I found myself standing in a field of wild blueberries. Picking and gobbling them by the handful, it occurred to me that this was the mountain’s reward for having climbed her. After stuffing myself with berries, I found a trail and followed it back down to where I had begun.
