Meeting Henry Pt 2

After lunch at Lucia and a marathon picture taking session the beemers and dubs once again headed north for the Coast Gallery and our ultimate destination, The Henry Miller Memorial Library. The Coast Gallery was a disappointment because the one beautiful second floor café has been closed and taken over by residents. Good for them I suppose but it is a loss for the public at large. There is still some interesting Henry Miller stuff there and some incredible hand-made tuned percussion. Lacking the café though our stay was brief and we headed for the library. Upon nearing the library we noticed an unusual amount of cars in the vicinity. When we pulled up we were informed the library was closed for a wedding. Wow what a bummer. Not only that but the lack of parking was so severe that I had to park the beemer in some very questionable dirt and gravel. A decision I was to much regret later.

The irrepressible Lewis however made his way past the double parked cars, through the wedding party and back to the library. Quite a sight it was too to watch him wend his way through the tuxedo clad crowd wearing his colorful Mexican poncho and Birkenstocks. Turns out the library proper was open and we followed Lewis’s progress through the penguin crowd. The actual library, it would be more accurate to call it a bookstore, was much smaller than I anticipated. Just a shack really where Henry never actually lived. It belonged to one of his friends. Was an interesting time watching the wedding party out on the patio get drunker and drunker and perusing the collection of books which one would not be likely to find any place else. Henry Miller is a kindred spirit and inspiration to a wide variety of disparate individuals. For examples rockers Henry Rollins and Patti Smith have embraced his work and his esthetic and, in fact, three of Rollins books of poetry are for sale there. Violent, disturbing work that, but I’m glad it has an outlet.

After leaving the gallery, a minor disaster. I told Patti to meet me on the other side of the road after I had extracted the beemer from her precarious parking position. Turns out her parking position was more precarious than I thought. Even thought I had put her on the center stand, as I mounted her one side collapsed into the mud and bike and rider went down hard. Not much damage to the bike besides the already tortured right hand mirror. Or so I thought.

All the way home though there was a funny noise I couldn’t quite identify. I kept thinking it was low tire pressure, but that turned out not to be the case. I didn’t find out until the next day that apparently the final drive seal had been knocked loose and that the bearing was slowly chewing itself to bits.

Which brings us to the present moment as I await parts to repair it for the next ride.