The Beard

Someone I've worked with for 30 years asked me when I grew my beard. They've never seen me without it. I grew it in October, 1973. A month before I grew it I was clean shaven, but I was a beard.

[Note: All of the names in this story are fictitious to spare the innocent and keep me out of trouble with the guilty.]

I was in San Francisco in September, 1973, visiting an old friend, Calvin. Cal was a hustler, a guy who knew a lot of the local artists I admired. It was the heyday of underground comix, the San Francisco posters were just starting to be seriously collected and Calvin was searching out artists and trading for their work. The reason I was in SF was because Cal and his wife Terri were divorcing, and the plan was for me to drive Terri and her kids back to Salt Lake in her car. For that reason I took a Greyhound bus to the Bay Area.

Al said to me, "Hey, it's Roger Crump's birthday. Would you like to go meet him?" Would I!

Roger Crump was and is one of the most famous of the underground comix artists who came out of San Francisco in the hippie era of the 1960s. I'd been familiar with his work before he was well known, through his appearances in Help! magazine, a satirical publication. I really loved his cartooning style. That day in September was Roger's 30th birthday.

We drove to his house on Brazil Street. Crump shared his pad with his friend Kerry and Roger's then-girlfriend, Katy. Cal introduced me to Roger. He also told Roger he was divorcing his wife and she'd be going with me to Salt Lake. Crump looked at me incredulously: "Your wife is going with him?" Cal corrected the assumption that I was running off with Terri. Crump thought Terri was very sexy. She had all of the features he drew into his cartoon women: tall, small busted, big firm butt, thick legs and ankles. I knew Cal to be a real hustler, and also knew he had pimped his wife to Roger to get some of Crump's original artwork. It worked, too. When Crump would go to Cal's house he'd have Terri wear tight hot pants (an old time version of short-shorts) and black knee-high spike-heeled boots. Crump was putty in the hands of such devious people.

Calvin began talking with Katy and told me, "Keep Roger busy!" then left the room with her. Say what? Keep him busy? Roger was completely ignoring me. I sat in an armchair petting Roger's cat, while Roger sat on the edge of a bed with his back to me, going through his collection of old 78 records. I enjoyed listening to the funky sounds. I still like Crump's choice of early Twentieth Century jazz, blues, hillbilly music. But keeping him busy I wasn't. Roger was busy picking out a tune on his banjo.

A little while later Cal and Katy reappeared. Crump asked us to drive him somewhere. He gave Cal and me each a copy of his latest comic book and off we went. I don't remember ever speaking with him, and he didn't give me any indication he wanted me to speak to him. We dropped him off and that was the last time I saw him in the flesh. Nowadays he's world famous, a hundred times more famous than he was then, but to me, even in his salad days, I felt in such total awe that I knew I was in way over my head. I knew he was shy, didn't like strangers, and I'm exactly the same way. I didn't want to impose myself on him.Later I found out a couple of things. One, Terri changed her mind. She still divorced Cal, but she decided to stay in California. So, no car trip. I took a bus back to Salt Lake. The second thing I found out was that Cal was having an affair with Roger's girlfriend. They had gone off for some illicit activity while we were there. I thought it was a big deal; that the disclosure of that affair would hurt Cal, hurt Katy. As it turned out, Crump got married, but not to Katy. He and his wife now live in France and came to the U.S. a few months ago to promote a book. They gave an interview where I found out that they have an open marriage. It's so open they announce it to the whole world. So there was probably no secret in Cal's affair with Katy, because Roger, according to his wife, has no jealousy in him whatsoever. Well.

Here's the interview from NPR about Mr. and Mrs. Crump's open marriage.

Oh yeah…I mentioned that I was a beard. Woody Allen used that term a few times in his movies. A beard is a stand-in. A beard is a guy who runs interference for someone engaged in an act he doesn't want identified with him. For many years I thought in this case I was a beard. I found out I was more of a goatee, or maybe just more of a goat.
Ciao for now.