Melkweg/ The Milky Way
The Milky Way was significant and growing in the 1970s. Creative people from all over the world worked there, and stunning performances were given.
It was also the only place in the Netherlands where hashish and marijuana could be bought.
This took place in a part called the Markt, where homemade jewelry and clothing were also sold. The hashish was sold in the Notenbar, where you could buy nuts. Plus. The Notenbar often caused long queues to the Leidseplein. At the beginning of the Milky Way, in the hallway, there was a sign with all kinds of prohibitions printed on it, under which someone had written Forbidden Verboden with a steady hand.
The Melkweg was a fantastic, creative place. Not only did bands perform, but music groups—all the bands that were just not big enough for Paradiso played in the Melkweg, and I saw them all—U2, Police, and Simple Minds, to name three. Theatre groups such as the Footsbarn Theatre, which performed plays by Shakespeare, among others, in a version that corresponded to the time in which Shakespeare wrote, also performed groups such as the Hot Peaches and The Bloolips, who surprised me with 'gay' theatre.
The Cinema upstairs showed notable films, including Kurasawa, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Luc Godard's entire oeuvre. I walked out of Eraserhead several times because it was so scary, but I returned just as often to see it.
I worked with my lover in the kitchen. We worked alternately: sometimes she would take a day, and then I would work for a day, sometimes she would work for a week, and I would go on holiday for a week, sometimes she would go on holiday for six weeks, and then I would go again. We lived together and shared everything.
The other people in the kitchen were a Japanese artist, a British beauty, and a couple of Dutchies.
We cooked two meals, one with meat and one without. People bought a receipt at the entrance and waited their turn in long queues. In my memory, a meal costs FL. 4.50. We asked them what they wanted and scooped up the plates. Sometimes, they didn't like something and wanted more of the other.