Giants walked the Earth in those days; what can I say?  He lived in San Diego's Ocean Beach - "OB" to the cognoscenti.   He was a talented musician and artist, (even after he became blind) and he was from Outer Space.  There were certain delicate rumours that LSD may have been implicated in this, but I think this is a red herring.

All I know for certain is that, in a town of a million or so, everyone had heard of him.  (And also of Cliff, the  drunk guy on the bus.  How does a city that large manage to have a town drunk?  And yet, we did.)

What is Space, anyway?  Some centuries ago, an odd child might be thought to be a changeling - offspring of fairies or bogles, left on the doorstep like a cuckoo's egg to be raised by the hapless Normals.  It stuns me to think of how many friends and allies I have had over the years who claimed to be from Outer Space... or to be non-human, anyway.  And each one discovered it on their own, with no outside prompting.  So what is Space?  Sun Ra would say, Space is the place, and so it apparently is - our place.  All of which makes the Church a lot more comprehensible (regrettable as that may be).  Somehow my memory folds this in with Sun Ra and, always, with the OB spaceman.

Ah well.   As Robyn Hitchcock said, "Watch out all you space cats - Clean Steve is a mineral man." 

 

Tags: Space ; Secret Handshake ; OB Spaceman ; Yeti ; Slack ; Memoirs