I once stood in line with him for the bathroom.

It was at Ken Scott’s house.  Remember Ken Scott?  Worked with everybody from Bowie to Supertramp?

Anyway, at the time Ken and his wife lived over the hill, just off of Laurel Canyon.  They had one of those pools with the natural rocks jutting up from the concrete.  I don’t know if they have those on the east coast now, but they were new to me in California. Everything was just a bit ethereal in California.  Like we were all in a Jack Nicholson movie, kind of "The Trip" crossed with "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice".

Actually, sometime I’ll tell you my Jack Nicholson story.  You see I was working in Star Sporting Goods on Highland…

Well, I guess I’m telling you now.  You see Jack used to come into the shop, but I was never there.  His driver would show up from time to time, needing supplies for his client, always being boorish and unfriendly, but I never caught a glimpse of Jack until…  One day in the fall of ’74, when I was in the back shop, word filtered through that Jack was in the store.

Now live in L.A. long enough and you give celebrities room, you respect their privacy.  But the only star I’d seen up close and personal to that point was Bette Davis, signing a memoir at Klein’s, on Main Street in Westport, so I couldn’t give up the chance, I bolted to the front of the store, adopted my coolest personality and started riffing with Jack.

Who was cooler than I’ll ever hope to be.

And so friendly!

He was in getting some supplies for his trip to Oregon.  I think he needed a ski rack for his Mercedes 600.  You see he was journeying up there to film "One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest".  We talked about car trips, being behind that great big windshield, observing the scenery.  We went on for about ten minutes.  I got the feeling if I ever ran into him in a bar he’d put his arm around me and say hi.

But I never ran into him again.  Although there was a picture of him riding the ski lift in Gstaad with the Kneissl Blue Stars we’d tuned in the shop in "Time" magazine.  I felt the connection then.

And I felt a similar connection with Mitch Mitchell outside Ken Scott’s water closet.  You know how it is at parties.  People snorting coke, girls perfecting their look, it’s not like a concert, you can wait in line for the loo for seemingly an hour.

I don’t remember if he introduced himself or I recognized him.  I’m thinking the latter, but that part’s unclear.  Although the memory feels like yesterday.  He no longer had the ‘fro of the sixties.  But it was the same guy who’d graced the Bushnell stage with Jimi back in ’68.  The night I took my life in my hands.  Well, the night that guy from Westport with the old Cadillac drove us back and forth to Hartford at ninety miles an hour.  Literally.

That’s what youth will do.  Not only do teenagers feel they won’t have an accident, but that they won’t be stopped by the cops either.

And I’m here to tell the story, so I guess this kid who was a year older but seemed about twenty five was right.

Hartford was an hour from where I grew up.  In the wrong direction.  We focused on NYC, only fifty miles away.  But we figured we could get tickets for the Bushnell show, whereas NYC was always dicey.

But we needed a ride.  And Brad knew this guy from Westport.  And I got the tickets.  And "Purple Haze" had been ubiquitous.  I even remember playing it at full blast through my guitar amplifier on the porch, displaying my identity to the minions in the suburbs.

Not that I’d sprung for "Axis: Bold As Love" yet.  Word on the street was it wasn’t as good as the first album (yes, the first U.S. album, we didn’t get "Smash Hits" for a while here.)  I remember him playing "If 6 Was 9", vividly.  If he played "Little Wing" or anything else from that second record I’m unsure.

But Jimi played the classics from the first album.  Even "Third Stone From The Sun".  And of course, "Foxey Lady".  With an "e". Jimi might have made a spelling mistake, but we thought it was on purpose!

"Foxey Lady" had been my favorite for so long.  But at the time, I was hooked on "I Don’t Live Today".  But he didn’t play that.  But it wasn’t only the hits, "Love Or Confusion" came out of the speakers too.

Actually, just before the encore, they changed the speakers.  Brought in some new cabinets, with rips in the fabric.  And they changed guitars also.  Jimi played with his teeth and then jammed the guitar into these newly arrived cabinets.  Which I thought was a little fake.  I mean why do it if you’re not going to employ the good stuff.

And I remember feeling so good I’d seen Hendrix.  But still having the creeping feeling he’d punched the clock.  After all, it was Hartford.

I never saw Jimi again.  I thought his Woodstock performance of "Star Spangled Banner" was overrated, a parlor trick by this time.  And the Fillmore album did include "Them Changes", but that was Buddy Miles’ number.  And we didn’t like Buddy Miles. We thought he was an interloper.  The only drummer for Jimi Hendrix was Mitch Mitchell.

And here I was standing in line for the bathroom with him.

He wasn’t dangerous, as he’d appeared that night at the Bushnell.  Actually, he was like that kid down the street who cracked jokes but wasn’t hip enough to hang out with.

But this was Mitch Mitchell!

You live long enough in Los Angeles and you meet them all.  And what you realize in almost all cases is they’re regular people. Or a little more fucked up than you.  With some social anxiety mixed in with a superiority complex and a dash of acid flashback thrown in for good measure.  It’s disappointing meeting your heroes.

But it wasn’t disappointing meeting Mitch Mitchell.  He’d survived.  I was proud of him for that.  He wasn’t a burn-out.

But that was almost a quarter century ago.

Mitch resorted to trading on his fame.  He wasn’t doing Hendrix stuff when we talked.  But the world is a cruel master.  It requires money.  And the older you get, the more you mine your past.  Until you just can’t handle it anymore.

I don’t know what killed Mitch Mitchell.  When it comes to rock stars, it’s almost always drugs.  But I’m gonna remember that night at Ken Scott’s house.  When I was suddenly an insider and Mitch Mitchell was positively alive.