Bill DeNoyelles: Flashback Friday! 40 Years Ago! High Times December 1985!

Forty years ago I had the honor of having one of my drawings used in High Times magazine. I've written about this before (see link below). It was featured in Cookie Mueller's High Advisor Column illustrating a story on twins. My reference was poet Phil Good resting in a room at 21 East 2nd Street, behind the legendary club CBGB. It was, without doubt, the most unusually fun "interview" I ever had in my life. Located on West 60th Street, off Columbus Circle, High Times was something to behold abounding with Fort Knox style security. I was given a code at what passed for a reception area and buzzed into a long space-age hallway reeking of powerful marijuana, out of the corner of my eye I caught table heaped almost a foot high with gold and green marijuana buds being obliterated by a photographer's bright flash. At the end of the hall stood the rather diminutive Santiago Cohen and his Art Director Mark Michaelson (who'd go on to work for John Giorno's AIDS Treatment Project). They welcomed me into a cluttered studio redolent of high grade pot, there was a bottle of Pepe Lopez Tequila with slices of lemon and salt on a layout table. They felt like old friends and in no time at all they began going through my portfolio with interest while passing me an enormous joint, handing me the bottle of tequila. After a year and a half of being rejected by every magazine, newspaper and book publisher in NYC, I finally found these two guys who "got me." We sat around casually shooting the shit (it was a Friday afternoon) as they gave me my assignment. The rest is history. However, once outside, I was barely able to navigate my surroundings so I could get myself back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

The illustration on the right is from the magazine I purchased at The OM - Rockland County's first and foremost head shop, in December of 1985. I proudly displayed my page to anyone within earshot or working there that day. The Om was the place, the proverbial "it" when it came to headgear, hip silver jewellery or cool clothes. It was the very first headshop in the area going as far back as 1969 - when they'd finally close, around 1990, I was able to claim the camel bells that hung on the door for two decades as my own. They reside on the door to my shrine room to this day. The other copy (in glassine wrap) was obtained in October 2022 at Country Bumpkin Antiques in White Lake, NY. My partner Cliff and I , through the years of leaf peeping and visiting the Woodstock Festival grounds in Bethel, would always stop at the Country Bumpkin forming a warm friendship with the owner and her mother. We always left with some great treasure - a black glass inkwell, A Betty Crocker Cookbook from the early seventies, a pizza cutter, a Corningware tea kettle. Sadly, we knew this would be our last trip to the 'Bumpkin as we affectionately called it. We were already downsizing, anticipating the sale of our home and our imminent move. At the top of a crooked staircase was a display of ephemera, including back issues of High Times - which I excitedly leafed through. Ta! Da! There it was - High Times December 1985. All wrapped up n' ready to go. I must have been beaming as I took the issue out, displaying my illustration on page 14 to our friends, who refused my money and gave it to me as a gift. We'd visit the 'Bumpkin no more. You know you've achieved something when you find your artwork in an antique store thirty seven years after the fact!