Medford mail tribune., October 02, 1960, Image 46

. 1..
Hostess Mrs.
Chauffeur Nick Gentile holds
door of limousine sent
take beatniks to evening's job.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY EBED McDARRAH
1
If.
As beatnik muse listens, von Ehmsen reads poetry by candlelight.
r v a.
Joe
FoRRgiqr
For a little bread, these bearded bohemians
can make your blast the swingingest
Beatniks are now Big Business. Or almost. At least one
group of beats operating out of New'York's Greenwich
Village finds that beards, dark glasses, shaggy sweaters, and
equally shaggy poetry are in demand by fashionable host
esses who want to give their guests something to talk about.
Fees start at $25 for a single beatnik, $50 for a bevy. The
beats will sing folk songs, recite verse and, if requested,
mingle with guests, expounding the beat message.
"Beatniks for Rent" began as a joke when managing ed
itor Fred W. McDarrah ran the following ad in his "Village
Voice," weekly Greenwich Village organ:
"Rent Genuine Beatniks. Badly Groomed But Brilliant."
To McDarrah's surprise, inquiries flooded in, and he be
gan sending his hairy friends to posh neighborhoods where
socially accepted beards probably had been seen only on
the Smith Brothers.
Star of McDarrah's beat stable is Ronald von Ehmsen,
poet, painter, and world traveler (he has driven his Italian
motor scooter through 34 countries) . Recently, von Ehmsen
and a few beat colleagues provided the floor show at a
party thrown by Mrs. Joe Given, wife of a New York disc
jockey, in suburban Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Arriving in a sleek limousine provided by- Given, von
Ehmsen and his pals enlivened the occasion. The grateful
Givens invited the beats to stay for supper, and von Ehmsen
was heard muttering: "Like, man, who says you can't have
your bread and eat it, too?"
During quiet moment, beatnik surveys
crowd he must keep entertained.
Given and star attraction exchange toasts.
Family Weekly, October 2. 1960
square
6 "711
I..-& JlMIL