Patrick Pendleton
Hi everyone, Patrick Pendleton here…the nearly normal night-shift manager. (Maintenance!) I started working for the Kingston Trio Inc. in May of 1969, a few weeks after my 21st birthday. My god…has it really been more than forty years?
I’ve tried several times over the years to describe; no, to recount, explain and capture what it was like to work or even “be on the scene” at the Trident. Even now, I think there’s a book in this at least. As I age, I’ve noticed that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be and I wonder if I haven’t over-romanticized the whole era. Yet when I stumbled onto this website while fooling around in Google, I realized that so many of us who worked there were on our way to becoming something or someone and that it had a huge impact on us. So nice to connect with you all again!
Night times, the right time! For seven years more I think, I thought I had the best job in the world. After the big 1000 watt custom-made, improvised work lights – cobbled together from old studio microphone stands came on, after the last alcoholics-in-training had been sent home (You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here), the waitresses, busboys, bartenders have all gone home (mostly) and the night managers have doled out all the blow and boo they’re going to…that’s when the real fun began. It was like a club within a club. Membership was small – there was Milt Hunt, owner and operator of an enterprise known as Great Northern Maintenance Co. Milty didn’t like to come in at night – he had me for that…but he was a great friend ,and man could he make you laugh!
He was also a very useful buffer between the maintenance crew and the Trident brain trust. C’mon, you can say it…Frank could be uh, Difficult? Challenging? Then there were the boys, my troops. Chris Lowe, who we used to call “Chicago ” for reasons which escape me now, he was really from Kansas New York kids who came to California
Of course, from time to time, there would be visitors…I remember one night in particular when Steve Elvin had his scaffolding set up to finish his ceiling mural. The work on sweeping and mopping couldn’t begin until he’d finished so to pass the time, I got up on the scaffold and helped him paint. A local Chronicle reporter asked him if he ever felt like Micheangelo painting the Sistene Chapel, and he replied, “Listen, I paint exactly the way Micheangelo would if he had taken peyote and lived with the Indians.”
Of course, from time to time, there would be visitors…I remember one night in particular when Steve Elvin had his scaffolding set up to finish his ceiling mural. The work on sweeping and mopping couldn’t begin until he’d finished so to pass the time, I got up on the scaffold and helped him paint. A local Chronicle reporter asked him if he ever felt like Micheangelo painting the Sistene Chapel, and he replied, “Listen, I paint exactly the way Micheangelo would if he had taken peyote and lived with the Indians.”
Anyway, on that particular night, Grover Boaz, who had done a significant amount of the carpentry and who was at the time one of the night-managers, came in with Don Lewis, Roger Lewis, Ramblin’ Jack Eliot, and John Stevens, noted songwriter and drunk. (No meetings for him) They’re all three sheets to the wind and fixin’ to hoist another sail. Needless to say, the booze and blow flowed. And the music…wow. Every time I hear “912 Toulouse St. California
I remember well the night of the robbery. These guys came in about 2:30 am wearing wetsuits. The papers started calling it the “Frogman Robbery”. They threw dish aprons over our heads (there was only Squeege Sam and I there that night) and made us sit on the floor in the men’s room and told us to stay there until morning but we only waited about forty minutes before calling the police at about 4:30am. We subsequently had to look at mugshots and testify at the robbers’ trial. It was supposed to be a scary deal because one of the defendants was allegedly affiliated with crime boss Sam Giancana but it ended up working out okay and I was able to get the DA, Ernest Zunino, to quash a bunch of old traffic warrants for me. That isn’t the only time there was an attempted robbery either. One time, Robin Williams, myself and this beautiful blond hostess, Bonnie were smoking a joint across the street in what was the maintenance shop and my dog, Einstein, started barking like crazy and this raggedy guy with a gun wanted the combination to a safe he believed was upstairs in Frank’s playhouse. We all kinda talked him out of it though. Who knew the job could be so dangerous?
There sure were a lot of good memories in that place. I gradually started working more and more as a carpenter and cabinet maker. I think we worked on this big tour bus for Neil Young for about two years…that was a lot of fun. I now live in a little seaside beach community in New Hampshire
Email Patrick at: Gizmo754@aol.com
Email Patrick at: Gizmo754@aol.com
Posted by Mark Lomas at 12/19/2009 11:16 AM 
Categories: The Trident
Tags: Trident Sausalito Mark Lomas Trident Restauranat Trident
Categories: The Trident
Tags: Trident Sausalito Mark Lomas Trident Restauranat Trident
The Trident was beautiful at four a.m. Chris and Henry (bass and drums) would put together a big meal like french toast and teryaki steak for whoever was working. There was an endless variety of cannabis products from around the world. Patrick kept a very mellow crew. Varnishing the floors, the rails, tables and chairs was endless work. The cops kept a car parked on the dock so we never had any trouble.
It was our Trident. Those 1000 watt lights would clear the place out quickly at 2 a.m.(look and see who you're with !) But it was always good to see the place come alive in the morning and I was headed home to Lagunitas.
I did stay and work for Ron MacAnnen for years. He maintained the building inside and out like a shrine until he sold it in 1996.
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