If you read my recent feature story about Curtis Rainbow, the brainchild of the December 1970 “Laguna Happening,” the biggest outdoor music festival in Orange County History, then you already know that he and his wife Melissa are homeless. For the past several months, they’ve been sleeping in their van in Huntington Beach. But after the vehicle stalled at an intersection on the night of June 22, police confiscated it.
Worse, says Rainbow, the owner of the storage unit where he says he has 10,000 first-edition books that he’s hoping to sell on eBay, has threatened to auction off the property unless Rainbow can come up with $2500. According to Reed, he was able to pay the owner, Curbside Self Storage of Huntington Beach, $500 to stall the auction for ten days but must pay the remaining amount by June 26—or else all those books, which Rainbow says represents his best chance at getting back on his feet, will become Curbside’s property and presumably be sold to the highest bidder.
Here’s a copy of the agreement Rainbow says he had no choice but to make with Curbside:
And here’s a link to Rainbow’s GoFundMe account in case you’d like to make a donation:
http://www.gofundme.com/rainbow88
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).