For goodness sakes ole' man
You've gone and done it now,
Or has it been done to you?

Gone down to old Mexico you say -
Well for goodness sake, have a good laugh on me,
And say hello to Janis, Mimi, Del, John and God.

In fact, say hello to everyone gone on before us
Or ever-after these charmed memories of mine
Of you, then as now singing your timeless melodies.

Good-by old friend - good-by.

Hammond Guthrie - 2001

Mimi Fariña (the petite sister of folk-singer Joan Baez), married her second husband, Milan Melvin, on the morning of the opening day of the 1968 Big Sur Folk Festival, which was held on the grounds of the Esalen Institute.

Milan was a producer at Mercury Records and a radio announcer for KSAN-FM. He was tall and gaunt, almost Abraham-Lincoln-like, with long black hair. Before meeting Mimi, he had been in a relationship with Janis Joplin. The connection with Janis apparently caused some bad blood between the two singers. Mimi also began to hang out with some of Janis' friends, including Linda Gravenites, a designer who roomed with Janis and also made dresses for Janis' stage act. The last straw, for Janis, came when Mimi asked Linda Gravenites to make her wedding dress. Linda created the appliqué with a beaded lace train that is seen in all the photos of Mimi's wedding with Milan.

Sweet Sir Galahad is a song written by Joan Baez, which she famously performed at Woodstock in 1969. The song tells the story of Baez' younger sister Mimi Fariña and her second marriage to Milan after the 1966 death of Fariña's first husband, novelist and singer-songwriter Richard Fariña. Baez was inspired to write the song, after hearing of Melvin's courtship of Mimi, during which he came into her bedroom at night through the window. It has since become one of Baez's most well-known compositions.

This book is the autobiography of Milan Melvin, edited and completed by Peter Laufer. A limited edition was published by Swan Isle Books, and later edition was published by Jorvik Press. (The book can be ordered from Jorvik Press.) Rolling Stone and KSAN survivor author Ben Fong-Torres wrote of the work, "Milan Melvin was one of the most fascinating figures out of the sixties. In fact, a case could be made that he helped to shape that time of our lives. Peter Laufer is one of the sharpest journalists out of the sixties. In one of his last major decisions, Milan asked Peter to help him tell his story. Together they do, and it is one for the ages."

by Peter Laufer

Milan and I were friends for over thirty years. I was on the list of those who received that sobering and sad message. As was the case with so many of us, for me, Milan dying was difficult to believe. Not only was he relatively young, but he had led a death-defying life of mad adventure since before I met him. Perhaps he wasn't going to outlive us all, but it was beyond his living legend to consider he was about to succumb to something as mundane as sickness.

Had I heard he had been shot by smugglers and bandits, pushed out of a CIA helicopter by his superior officer, was rotting in a Third World prison charged with fomenting revolution, or had simply disappeared, it would have been much easier to accommodate than this pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

Milan was a Zelig-like figure for the latter half of the twentieth century. He seemed to be everywhere and do everything -- and be there and do it first. From the post-War tedium of the paranoid Fifties, through the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll Sixties, on to the world-trekking Seventies, the self-reflective Eighties, the capital-building Nineties, Milan was a player, a teacher, and always a student on the world stage.

In many ways, as his autobiography makes clear, he lived the Baby Boomer fantasy life: rarely compromising, highly political, self indulgent, seeking enlightenment and instant gratification simultaneously.

A few weeks after that death-sentence e-mail, I was stuck in Washington, DC with all flights home to California grounded. It was September, 2001, and I was wandering around looking at Hum-Vees and National Guardsmen on patrol in Georgetown, watching the Pentagon smolder from the Key Bridge, when my mobile phone rang with a call from Milan in Mexico. He was dying faster than he had expected. In the midst of the national tragedy, he and his friends and family were suffering a personal tragedy.

He told me he wanted me to come to Puerta Vallarta and debrief him. His memoirs were unfinished. He wanted these interviews to complete the story and then he wanted me to compile and edit the material. "I don't want this job," I complained, still stunned at his diagnosis. For me, Milan was always like an invulnerable older brother.

He reminded me that when he first became sick I offered to do whatever he needed.

"Here's a lesson," he advised. "Be careful what you offer."

Over the next few weeks I made two trips to see him in Mexico. He talked as long as his strength lasted. Once in a while we laughed. He took me up to his dream ranch, where the workers were putting the finishing touches on his new house.

©Peter Laufer