Hey, jamjohne, I saw what I think was his last show at the Gaslight in late 1967 or early '68. The Gaslight closed down soon after that, and became a restaurant called the Feedbag and a health food store called the Oak Feed Store. (Remember the O.K. Feed Store on U.S.1? Oh my God, Miami nostalgia?!) It was the only time I ever saw him live, and I'm sure glad I had the chance.

And while I'm engaging in Miami thread creep, did you ever manage to catch Michael Smith at the Flick when he was part of the Flick Trio? He was known as Mike then, and generally very silly. We saw him here in the S.F. Bay Area a couple of years ago, doing a bunch of serious, beautiful stuff like "Margaret and the Dutchman," and I couldn't believe it was the same guy. (Well, I hadn't seen him since about 1970!) I really wasn't sure, until he told the story about tuning his guitar to the Miami phone system dial tone. We asked him about his apparent personality transplant, and he said the Flick wanted a comedian and he needed a job. So now he is doing what he really wanted to all along.

So much for thread creep. A friend of mine used to berth his boat next to Fred's, and was always chasing strange people off his own deck when they mistook it for Fred's. I'm glad to hear that he cleaned up his life in the end.