I remember the feeling of a DMZ there at Minnie’s.  People of all stripes sitting together listening to what we had to say.  Thank you Ron, thank you Minnie, thank you everyone who was there!

The voice of John Ross, a pied piper of poetry in the early 1970s, rang in the small room at 17 Columbus Avenue, where our raffish poetry group met. My first thought was of that cheapo sci-fi movie, “Mars Needs Women.” Then I gulped. “I’m one of those. Where is it?” I took Muni, which let me off one block away from California & Fillmore. I knew this neighborhood. At that time the Goodwill was right across the street.

As I entered, it was dim. A row of working men at the bar all turned their heads and watched me politely, but with curiosity. I wore a long flowery dress, boots, and had really long hair. Maybe I am on Mars, I thought. Sunshein, the organizer, greeted me pleasantly and had me sign up on the list of poets. I looked around and saw the only other woman there was our benefactor, Minnie Baker. I wish I could remember which poems I read. Total blank there. Nice sound of applause from other poets and even the men at the bar.

Looking at my old calendar, I see I did not go every Wednesday for a while. But soon it was necessary. Almost instantly it  became a rip-roaring, nonstop wonder, everything from Beat to the at first timid, then more powerful, voices of women, gays, people of all colors — from sonnets to the kind of rap people did then, extemporaneous, sometimes angry, wildly inventive, sometimes sweet, jazzy and all about love. After a while ruth weiss took over as emcee. We formed a friendship that has lasted to this day.

Minnie offered opportunities to the gifted and the unknown. Some may remember Sylvester, a flashy performer of disco, first black and openly, quite deliriously happily gay. After his debut at Minnie’s he went on to a fame too brief, dying of AIDS among that first tragic wave of that sad plague.

About that story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono visiting Minnie’s: There’s a little controversy there. We all heard how Yoko had banished John to California in the company of May Pang, who looked mysteriously glum in all the photos. If Yoko did show up at Minnie’s, it was under the radar of common gossip.

On occasion Minnie would put on a feast, with scrumptious food from a nearby West Indian cafe — big pots of steaming spicy island food. Goat? Maybe.

As Minnie said, it was all about the dancing. We read to jazz groups dancing, some on stage. After the readings, I remember boogying with men, women, short, tall, gay and straight, a rainbow of dancers, our bodies another kind of poetry.

Minnie let me do a solo reading once. It was probably my best ever. What an audience! I still see their faces, hear them calling out for this or that poem. We all had such a good time. Years later, 1998 or so, riding to my swing shift job at a hotel, I heard a voice I thought at first to be a man shouting to himself. “These women dance, oh these women dance …” It sounded familiar. I turned and saw one of the poets from Minnie’s, Jerry Ferraz the troubadour, with his ever-present guitar. He was reciting one of my poems from Minnie’s.

I almost wept. Minnie’s never dies.

This area from California to Sutter was sort of a DMZ. Blacks and whites mingled, but it was touch and go except at Minnie’s.

And then, see, I was keeping shop and my shop wasn’t really doing well and I ran up a bar bill I couldn’t pay. I had a small coffee shop at Pine and Fillmore. I sold imported coffees and body lotions under my own label. The shop was way ahead of its time. And in order for Minnie to get her money back, she thought she had to hire me. I was the bartender. Everybody knew Sunshein, my street name. I started keeping the bar with Aaron, Minnie’s son, and Felita, Minnie’s daughter.

The ambiance made it special, but you can’t use words like ambiance for a bar that was terrifying to look at in some respects. Silver all over the walls. It was a multi-cultural place in a very true sense. At that time we had 25 to 30 Japanese kids living in a commune up the street. They were artists and many of those artists established international reputations at galleries in London, Paris and Tokyo.

At that time, Mr. Takahashi was around. He was a Samurai and wore the traditional clothing and carried a sword. Mr. Takahashi spoke very little English, but he owned one of the most beautiful art galleries in the Japan Center. Occasionally Mr. Takahashi came in for a beer while I was bartending. On one particular occasion, a young, strapping man started making jibes at Mr. Takahashi and making fun of his “dress.” In a couple of moments this young man became vociferous and challenging … at which point Mr. Takahashi smiled and bowed and walked to the dance floor and removed his sword from its sheath. After about three minutes of expert swordsman’s demonstration, Mr. Takahashi bowed and put the sword back in its sheath. He came back and sat down at the same bar stool. The young man left hastily.

Blacks and whites came in and we had some Apaches on occasion. It was a people’s bar and exchange center. The music was great and Minnie was Minnie’s Can-Do. There were straight people and gay people and upside down people. Richard Hongisto, who was the sheriff at the time, was a regular there. Cops on the street were congenial.

About that time, 1972 or ’73, there was local opposition to Minnie being granted a cabaret license, which would mean she could have live music. So 30 of us loaded up in cars and trucks to go to the permit board to get her license. I think a few locals were afraid of the loud music and rip-off that had to ensue. But the rip-off didn’t ensue. Minnie got the license.

There was a ping pong table, so at lunch time a lot of the fellows from the telephone company would come. The bar attracted a lot of young French people from the local French newspaper.

I started the poetry readings, I think in ’72. Minnie and I were talking one particularly slow night and I said, “Let’s have a poetry reading one night a week.”

“It’ll never work,” she replied.

We looked at each other and both of us said at the same time, “Fine, let’s do it.”

I remember the first two or three nights of the poetry readings. I was a little brassier then, and I would go to the bar and tell people to shut up. But then folks got into it in a big way. At Christmas we had poem trees where the poets would come from all over the city to hang their poems written on a piece of paper on the tree, and we would read them. Minnie’s mother would read from the Bible.

After about nine months I turned the poetry over to ruth weiss, an important American poet. ruth and I worked hand in hand and then when ruth got tired of it, Max Schwartz and Charles Storey took it over. We had a three year anniversary party of the poetry readings. The anniversary party was typical of most of the readings. It was wall to wall people and you had to climb over them to get to the bathrooms.

SunDance magazine came on the scene and one day there were some people from the magazine in Minnie’s. I was there, just sitting and listening to the jukebox. Minnie was excited and she called me over and said, “I have some people here that I want you to meet.” And she said, “This is John and this is Yoko.” And I said, “Hello, very nice to meet you.” They replied in kind and I went back and sat down and continued to listen to the jukebox and drink my beer. That was the one and only time I met John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

One night Minnie and I were in our cups and she said, “Sunshein, get my piece and put it in my purse. Come with me. You’re going to have a Black Studies program.” When Minnie Baker goes out, nobody messes with her. So we went out that night to a lot of clubs in the Fillmore that were still very colorful and it wouldn’t be good for a honky to go in alone. I got to see a different life than I’d seen before.

The voice of John Ross, a pied piper of poetry in the early 1970s, rang in the small room at 17 Columbus Avenue, where our raffish poetry group met. My first thought was of that cheapo sci-fi movie, “Mars Needs Women.” Then I gulped. “I’m one of those. Where is it?” I took Muni, which let me off one block away from California & Fillmore. I knew this neighborhood. At that time the Goodwill was right across the street.

As I entered, it was dim. A row of working men at the bar all turned their heads and watched me politely, but with curiosity. I wore a long flowery dress, boots, and had really long hair. Maybe I am on Mars, I thought. Sunshein, the organizer, greeted me pleasantly and had me sign up on the list of poets. I looked around and saw the only other woman there was our benefactor, Minnie Baker. I wish I could remember which poems I read. Total blank there. Nice sound of applause from other poets and even the men at the bar.

Looking at my old calendar, I see I did not go every Wednesday for a while. But soon it was necessary. Almost instantly it  became a rip-roaring, nonstop wonder, everything from Beat to the at first timid, then more powerful, voices of women, gays, people of all colors — from sonnets to the kind of rap people did then, extemporaneous, sometimes angry, wildly inventive, sometimes sweet, jazzy and all about love. After a while ruth weiss took over as emcee. We formed a friendship that has lasted to this day.

Minnie offered opportunities to the gifted and the unknown. Some may remember Sylvester, a flashy performer of disco, first black and openly, quite deliriously happily gay. After his debut at Minnie’s he went on to a fame too brief, dying of AIDS among that first tragic wave of that sad plague.

About that story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono visiting Minnie’s: There’s a little controversy there. We all heard how Yoko had banished John to California in the company of May Pang, who looked mysteriously glum in all the photos. If Yoko did show up at Minnie’s, it was under the radar of common gossip.

On occasion Minnie would put on a feast, with scrumptious food from a nearby West Indian cafe — big pots of steaming spicy island food. Goat? Maybe.

As Minnie said, it was all about the dancing. We read to jazz groups dancing, some on stage. After the readings, I remember boogying with men, women, short, tall, gay and straight, a rainbow of dancers, our bodies another kind of poetry. Minnie let me do a solo reading once. It was probably my best ever. What an audience! I still see their faces, hear them calling out for this or that poem. We all had such a good time.

Years later, 1998 or so, riding to my swing shift job at a hotel, I heard a voice I thought at first to be a man shouting to himself. “These women dance, oh these women dance …” It sounded familiar. I turned and saw one of the poets from Minnie’s, Jerry Ferraz the troubadour, with his ever-present guitar. He was reciting one of my poems from Minnie’s.

I almost wept. Minnie’s never dies.

[Phyllis Holliday was possibly the first woman poet to read at Minnie’s Can-Do Club.]