When I came to San Francisco in 1969 I lived at the Rip Off Press which was then located in a condemned building that has long since been torn down and replaced by something (I assume) more useful. In addition to a toilet we had a cold water sink and an old white enamel refrigerator. One day a couple showed up at the Press, a young woman maybe 19 or 20 and her similarly aged boyfriend who crashed for a while. I seem to recall it was the boyfriend who painted a picture on the refrigerator door in a Sgt. Pepper style swirl of color, a Horn of Plenty. The image on that refrigerator has travelled with me since.

A trite Horn of Plenty rendered in a doubly trite Peter Max pastel color, nothing we would have appreciated at the Press, yet I remember it still. Maybe it was because the artist was hungry when he painted it, I remember he and his girlfriend hanging out for a while with a guy twice their age who had money. Very hip, of course, hanging with these two young hippies, buying them dinner, letting them crash at his house and, well, fucking the girl was just the friendly thing to do, don't you know, two years after the Summer of Love. So the boyfriend put his heart into the Peter Max style pastel color Horn of Plenty image on the Rip Off Press refrigerator door and maybe that's what gave the image its power.