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In April, 1968, I went with Guy and his band and a second dancer to Lompoc, California, to perform for several days at the officers’ club at Vandenburg Air Base. It was while we were there that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and we all gathered in one motel room and watched the events in stunned and horrified silence.
The first time
we went there we took a fairly new dancer who had studied with Masha
Archer – a young blond named Dhyana. I
had worked with her and found her to be a nice girl and a promising
dancer, so Guy gave her a try. She and I stayed in a very
strange and funky old hotel, which we thought was charming, while
the musicians stayed in a considerably more prosaic – but cleaner
– motel. We ate lots of green chili and sopaipillas (heaven!) at
the Coney Island Café, which was run by a Greek.
We also spent a lot of time shopping and sight-seeing in Old The next time
we went to Albuquerque we took a very good cabaret singer, Anna
Marie Mavros, who also appeared with us later in Once we went from Albuquerque to Tucson, where our show was featured at the Spanish Trail Motel, following the DeCastro Sisters and followed by Count Basie’s band. We had performed for six days at the Tiki Kai, drove for a day to Tucson, and then performed for seven days straight there. We were tired! We had with us at that time a real bombshell, a short, sweet and flashy Mexican girl named Gabriella. She sang well and bellydanced after a fashion. (Guy said that to watch her dance and then mine was like seeing a mouse followed by a lion!) She was a good addition to the troupe.
Mr. Adler expected us all to stay at the Spanish Trail, but he charged us for our rooms – and crummy ones they were – unlike most hotel venues where we appeared, where we were given free rooms as a matter of course. Pete, the drummer, and Gabriella took rooms at a nearby, rustic motel, and the Spanish Trail manager was furious. When I tried to defect, too, Guy asked me not to, as the situation was getting really unpleasant. Pete was forbidden to join us in the Spanish Trail’s swimming pool, though Gabriella, a tourist attraction in her bikini, was still welcome. During the daytimes at most of the places we worked on the road tours, we would frequently go sightseeing. Tucson was one of the best places for this. We went to Old Tucson, which had been built as a movie set originally, and the Sonoran Desert Museum, as well as the mission churches of San Xavier del Bac (gorgeous and spooky, especially against the stormy sky) and Tumacacori (mostly a ruin). We also went across the border to Nogales (except Gabriella, who didn’t want any problems at the border) and all got sick from eating in a restaurant called The Cave. Nights on the desert were absolutely amazing – either more stars than you ever imagined existed or a full moon so big and bright that it could make anyone a little loony. Driving along under the moon, through the saguaro cacti, it was very easy to imagine an Apache sitting his horse on top of every cliff and mesa!
There was a funny thing at the Esquire Club – Guy had continued to use some old publicity photos, as we had never had a chance to have any newer ones taken. One he used was of him with Diane Webber, with whom he had worked for a while. (Though she was a dancer then, she and her husband later became well-known nudists in Southern California.) Diane and I were superficially alike in our faces, hairdos, etc., though I was thinner and about a foot taller. Some of the patrons of the club decided that I was Diane Weber, even though I, of course, emphatically denied it. There were large bets laid, and there was a big uproar about it every night! There was a photographer who came to see us frequently in Omaha and, I think, had a little crush on the show – or at least on the dancers! He took a lot of pictures of me one evening when I was dancing while suffering with a migraine, and they are surprisingly sultry and effective. He also made a little movie of Guy, Afrita and me in a wheat field – Guy is playing the oud, and Afrita and I dance solo and together. It is a great artifact now! It was a windy day, and, when we were through, our torsos were covered with little red dots from the wheat that was whipped against us by the wind. Dancing “on the
road” was a great adventure, but I was always delighted to return
to my own apartment in Berkeley and my sweet little son – until the
next time! Have
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The
Gilded Serpent presents...
The
other dancer for that gig was Tahia Sirhan, one of
the dancers I saw at the
Starting
in 1968 I went on road tours with Guy, his musicians – usually Pete
Peterson on drums and Joe Dabney or Bert
Pellish on piano – and another girl – a singer or dancer.
Our first stop was always Albuquerque, where we appeared at the Tiki
Kai Supper Club (which has since burned down). Despite its
Polynesian name, the Tiki Kai booked many big name acts from across
the spectrum of entertainment, and bellydancing had never before come
to New Mexico. It was a very nice restaurant with an adequate stage,
but the women’s dressing room had a good-sized hole in the floor,
covered insecurely by a rug – a trap for the unwary – I don’t know
why they didn’t fix it.
Albuquerque.
All went well until the night Dhyana – to my horror – gave a couple
of joints to some guys in the audience after the show! Yes, it was
the time of hippies, free love, flower power and all, but Albuquerque
was not Berkeley or San Francisco, and her act of “love” could have
had disastrous consequences for the whole troupe! Guy fired her immediately,
and she was replaced by an old pro, Yasmina (BJ
Kunkel). The rest of our stay there was uneventful. 
Our
first night at the Spanish Trail was not our best showing ever. We
did the show as we had been doing it elsewhere, with us girls mostly
backstage, just coming out to do our numbers in between songs and
Guy’s comedy routines. Mr. Adler, the manager, who
was a bad dude (we heard Mafia rumors) told us that if we didn’t
fix the show by the next night, we were outta there! We hastily retooled
things so that we girls were on stage most of the time, playing tambourines
and singing along to some songs like “Hava Nagila”. The man was pacified,
and we finished our stay. We also kept the new format from then on,
as it really was better. The audiences in Tucson were, however,
the hardest to please we ever met. They had a tendency to look at
us as though we were some kind of spider they had never before seen
– yes, bellydancing was something new in Arizona, but their reaction
was ridiculous! 
Gabriella
was still with us when we went on up to Nebraska, where we appeared
for two weeks at the Esquire Club in Lincoln and
two weeks at the Flamingo restaurant in Omaha. Once
more, as far as I could find out, I was the first bellydancer to appear
in that state! As much as the Tucson folks were appalled by
us, so much the Nebraskans loved us! It was most gratifying!
One of the things I remember most clearly about Lincoln, besides the
shady streets of beautiful old houses just meant for raising families,
was the approach as we drove to the city. There was no gradual easing
into the city environs – there were fields and then suddenly city,
and the fields near it were filled with wild fuchsia peonies! What
a glorious sight!
Shortly
after we reached Nebraska, Gabriella had to return to 
polished,
the audience loved her, as her sweet personality shone through. Taking
the name Afrita, she stayed with us for the rest
of the tour, and I taught her every day. Eventually she came out
to California to continue her new career, took some lessons from Jamila,
and went on from there.
