I’d fact-check before I put it in a book, but memory tells me that Gary Warne ended up in San Francisco because his pals from West Virginia, the Breiding clan, came here first. Within a few years Gary launched The Suicide Club, and he was always trying to pull people into the exploits — especially G. Sutton Breiding, who chose instead of joining us in epic climbs to the tops of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, or participating in chase games through the alleys of Chinatown, or dozens of other regular breakneck adventures, to stay inside his rooms and write poetry. Finally, Gary couldn’t take it any more and challenged Sutton to go out and experience life and adventure to the hilt, to push his limits, test the boundaries. Sutton looked at Gary and challenged him to lock himself in a room for a few years with only his own thoughts.
Yeah. Which one would be harder to do?
Anyone curious to look into GSB’s writing now has a new website to prowl around in — you’ll find out soon enough if you like the fruits of his long seclusion. The photo comes from brother Mike Breiding’s Epic Road Trips blog, showing another brother, Bill, and GSB riding a bus in San Francisco in 1979, the very era we are talking about this time.
