Don’t Give Me No Sugar Cubes

​When I started touring, Bill Cosby took over my room above the Gaslight.

​I was at The Village Gate opening up for Coleman Hawkins doing standup. Bob Dylan said, “You gotta come to the Gaslight.” He kicked Cosby out of the room to give it back to me.

​Cosby thought anytime I would offer him a drink it was filled with LSD. He was certain that everything that I touched turned into LSD. Who else thought that was Jose Feliciano. “Don’t give me no sugar cubes,” he used to say.

​The Golden Lion

​Once I got to New York, I established a gig at The Golden Lion in Hartford, Connecticut doing jazz and poetry. It was a hit; it was huge. Every Monday for years, Beatniks would line up around the block.

​I brought in people like Don Ellis, Jaki Byard, and Jimmy Giuffre. We got paid: that’s how I got these guys to come out. Every Monday was a payday. We would leave New York City and drive to Hartford and do it.

​I’m just a hippie poet in an altered space. “Space is the place,” said Sun Ra.