CLIQUES

When Bob Hare opened his Hermosa Beach coffeehouse/bookstore in 1958, he called it the Insomniac, partly because Allen Ginsberg and Lenny Bruce seldom left before dawn. Today, 26 years after his shop closed, Hare has noticed a less-than-alert look among coffeehouse regulars, and wonders if decaf is to blame.

Insomniac’s coffee didn’t come in decaf. Brewed in a 300-pound dry-cleaning boiler, it was served to the Beat Generation during the L. A. coffeehouse craze. The last coffeehouse craze, that is.

“In ‘61, we were the first bookstore to carry ‘Tropic of Cancer,’ ” claims Hare, 60, who was arrested for selling the book, though charges were later dropped. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen today. Coffeehouses now sometimes lack the intense literary and political conversation we had then.”

At the Insomniac, Ginsberg read “Howl” and a 16-year-old Linda Ronstadt sang. “Today,” says Hare, a salesman at C&R; Clothiers, “I think the poetry is better and the music is worse. Coffeehouses become popular as people get excited about ideas that they need to discuss. Hopefully that will never die out.”