by Zaharr A. Hayatti

This was a very significant time in the lives of all of us connected musically. We were involved in seeking answers about our spiritual quests, and looking toward Asia for inspiration and wisdom. Built into one corner of the Colby Street house was an old rabbit hutch that had been magically converted into a fantastical Japanese tea house. Bill and Kathy lived there, and one day they invited me in for tea. The tea was powdered, and bright green. Bill would scoop it into a bowl, pour a bamboo dipper of hot water over it, whip it with a tiny bamboo whisk into a foamy, steaming froth. My first taste of it reminded me of a day at the beach! It seemed like essence of seaweed, sea breezes, sunshine, and waves. I was hooked for life, had I but known it then.

Bill was an old friend of Allan Watts, who was living in Sausalito at that time on one half of a converted ferryboat that had been built in the 1800s. It had been salvaged just before it was to be demolished. It was named the S. S. Vallejo. The artist Yanko Varda, who was born in Smyrna and had once lived in Paris with Jean Miro and several other famous French artists, lived on the other half. Varda had painted the boat with two great eyes. Everything, including the clothing of the artist himself, was brilliantly colored. When we would go to visit Allan, Varda always seemed to have a bevy of gorgeous girls in various stages of undress cavorting about the boat. In complete contrast, Allan was always correctly dressed in somber-colored Japanese kimono and his half of the ferryboat had the elegant austerity of a Zen temple.

excerpted from http://www.gildedserpent.com/articles23/zaharrpart3n4.htm