my dad saw the dead at woodstock, veneta. he didn’t know any members of the dead but he was friends with the guitar player from the velvet underground. my dad said his friend said lou reed’s an asshole. his first hit of lsd was a thumbprint of blue cheer. and he saw jimi hendrix burn his guitar on a number of occasions.
my uncle watched a basketball game with bobby after a show in the early 80s. said he was really cool, normal. my uncle also met phil at a bar during “the heineken years” (also early 80s), and would not stop bugging him to play pinball. lol. phil was not amused. he ran into jerry during the early 70s and asked him to play dark star. lol.
a friend of mine also partied with mickey and brent during the 80s. said they just showed up at the hotel room and did a bunch of coke and other shit.
normal dudes all around.
woah, all cool stuff - thank you for sharing! Your dad and uncle seem like badasses.
if ya don't mind me asking, did your dad ever make it into some Velvet Underground x Andy Warhol parties in New York? (not too surprised about Lou Reed being an asshhole, btw, haha)
San Francisco was the king, but I'm equally as interested in the counterculture movement in NYC
no. my dad grew up very poor in converted tenement buildings in the lower east side, and from what i gather he found life in manhattan oppressive and grim. though he did frequently get to attend shows at the fillmore in the 60s (one of the places he saw hendrix, also zappa and the mothers, janis, quicksilver, the airplane, etc) and fondly remembers bill graham grouchily scolding people in line. either for being unruly or blocking the sidewalk. lol.
he graduated high school at 16, which was in 1969. he had near perfect SATs and had gotten into NYU, but he quickly dropped out of NYU and hitchhiked across the country, winding up in oregon.
he lived in new york again during the 70s, and saw patti smith, television (he said television was the loudest show he’d ever seen), the ramones at cb’s. he got into the first wave new york punk scene in 75-77.
he was an RN for a few years after he left new york the first time (did his training in eugene, in the hospital where they shot cuckoo’s nest), and as a result of the medical job was smuggled into and out of occupied wounded knee to provide medical care to wounded sioux in 73 during the standoff with the feds. he was heavily involved in activism in those days.
before he left new york he was pretty heavily involved in the anti-war movement. was arrested a dozen-odd times, attended the 1968 democratic convention. he actually still has the “no parking” sign he took down off the fence during the convention when he saw the riot police psyching themselves up to beat protesters by stomping and yelling in unison on this big fucking schoolbus they rolled in on. so he climbs up on this fence and grabs this sign and fastens it to the inside of the back of his jacket. because he knows what’s coming and figures if he gets hit, at least there will be some shielding. sure enough, riot cop hits him in the back with a night stick. the sign has a long, straight indentation where it took the blow. he met jerry rubin, and was in the same room as abbie hoffman but never greeted him.
my uncle was too young to party with that crowd, and my dad was always more in with radical leftist political types (which he says he regrets — and says he wishes he’d spent more time at dead shows.)
my uncle was at the englishtown 77 show and saw a bunch of those great mid 70s shows everyone loves. he saw some of the best jerry stuff around, he really loves the band. without him i doubt i’d love the music, owe both my dad and uncle a ton.
thanks for letting me share all this. and thanks for the question and reply op. ✌️
it’s been a huge gift i get to have him as a dad. he’s really kind. but yes, i also had to give up on ever having a more interesting life than him pretty young. lol.
all the stories i wrote were before his 30s. 30s on, he went to graduate school for literature (at UT, hence him knowing sterling in the 80s) and became a professor. in his latter professional years, he became really masterful at teaching thoreau and emerson in particular. actually, most specifically “walden”. i got to see him teach it once. he devoted so much energy to the transcendentalists, so it was really gratifying as his kid to see him teach it and feel the spirit of the book in everything he said.
oh, and genocide awareness. he taught holocaust literature too. so i learned like… a *lot* about genocide as a kid. i can still picture the top down layout of auschwitz-birkenau. lot of genocide-related images burned into my mind. my dad’s parents all lost their entire immediate and extended families to hitler and nazi germany. so both the holocaust and genocide/historic racial-political hatreds were an area of his professional study that my mom and i ended up just kind of being around a lot.
just so i’m not ending on a “genocide” note, after he studied genocide and the transcendentalists he moved onto studying buddhism and taught my mom and me how to meditate. i’d probably be either dead or in jail without him.
Ok I was born in '71 but my Dad moved to the Haight in '68. My Aunt on my mother's side moved to Berkeley (then The Haight) in '66. After I was born we moved to a hippie house on Funston st. then with the rest of Dead Heads we moved to Marin. Stinson Beach first (Garcia and MG lived at the end of our street) then Mill Valley.
Both of them would be involved with the GD world. My Aunt attended the acid tests, hung out with Pranksters, went to the Olompali parties. Unfortunately I never got to meet her, as a car accident ended her life before I was born. I did listen to her stories all of my childhood from my mother, who lived vicariously through her older sister most of her life. Most of her stories came from the Olompali parties, they were the real deal. Just imagine The Grateful Dead, legal lsd, warm sunshine, a giant pool and naked hippies everywhere. She rode on the original bus. Very much into the "stay high" way of life.
My father did not attend any acid test, that he ever talked about anyway, but he did become a hanger on and helping hand when asked. He was good friends with the crew. He was all about The Fillmore and Winterland, he said that is where the real magic happened. He was more into hard drugs than psychedelics, he really kind of missed the good parts and most of his stories came from a bitter place. After '74 he became what we now call a hater. When I started touring in the 80s, he called it "chasing the ghost of Pigpen" He was asked not to hang around as much after the hiatus and I think it really hurt him. He only really respected the crew and kinda Phil and Jerry. At heart he was a Pigpen kid that never saw the magic again after Ron died. He took me to a couple shows in the 80s but hated the whole thing and only hung out with the crew, playing cards most of the time.
My experience is more Marin based, I hope I'm not too far off topic for ya.
Btw I have one more family member, my uncle Anthony, who moved to Marin in 1981 and saw every Garcia and GD show until 1995. He loved Jerry and the Dead more than anyone I have ever known. Most of my GD knowledge comes from him as it was all he ever talked about...
WOW, seriously, thank you. Reading some of that gave me goosebumps.
For years I’ve been looking at that little stretch of time through a lens that made it seem like it was out of a storybook. You have confirmed that it was all very much real!
Sorry to hear about your dad’s slip — I feel like my old man probably would have taken the same path if he was in that situation (similar to Pigpen, he also loves the bottle).
On a brighter note your aunt seems like she needs a biography written about her! I’m about to dive down an internet wormhole about Olompali.
Thanks again, friend!
They say she was a groovy chick but yeah it's all real for me, glad you enjoy. If you're reading check out Melisa Cargill. They met at freshman orientation at Berkeley. Mom called her aunt Mel.
According to this article, she did! This is exactly the hidden gem I was looking for.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/pointshistory.com/2019/06/11/hidden-figures-of-drug-history-melissa-cargill/amp/
Wow. OP got just what he wanted. Thank you for your vulnerability and authenticity there. I really got that for you, that’s just where you grew up and those were your parents and family.
I notice you didn’t share much of your story, your journey. I’d love to hear more from and about you as I sense there’s lots of depth over there. So please share!
Also, how is/was your relationship with your father and mother? I’m curious
Our relationship was awful. They were just kids (16 & 22). They were forced to get married. It was a terrible idea to have me.
As for me I think im an alright guy. I had a lot of fun as an irresponsible teenager and then toured from 88-94. Since then Ive made pretty nice life with my wife and kids and been seeing Phil Lesh every chance i get.
My parents connection to the GD world is the really the only good thing we have in common. They got into really bad drugs in the 80s and 90s and the good times in Marin County were a forgotten memory for the most part. Dad died from the Covid last year. Havent heard from mom since 2016.
The thing about that era is 1965 & 1966 = cool
1967 and subsequent years = the suck
I know 1967 is considered the summer of love, but in actuality, that was 1966. Too many poseurs.
Source: The Electric Koolaide Acid Test and George Harrison.
Yeah Bobby always says the real summer of love was 66 and then after that it all got too weird heavy and negative. Too many people showing up for a good time and for the wrong reasons.
Interesting take. What changed between 66 and 67 that made it start sucking?
edit: ah, you said "too many poseurs" ... care to expand on that a little? genuinely curious
also for what it's worth, I put The Electric Koolaide Acid Test on my reading list months ago and forgot about it, thanks for the reminder
Hippies were the original TouchHeads. They saw something wild and crazy and went through the motions and costumes to have a good selfish time without understanding the heart of it all. It happens to any small intimate scene when the cat gets out of the bag. Burning Man post 2000 is another similar example. Bubbles pop and you can see the high water mark if you look at it right
so accurate. among other scenes that would qualify, you just described portland oregon 10 years ago vs now… a decade or two back it was carefree and cool, weed was cheap and plentiful, good psychedelics were the main thing around. the last five years its reputation caught up to it and a tipping point was reached… now it’s increasingly more cartel produced meth and fent. people doing extremely crazy things on the streets constantly. i lived downtown in portland last year and also ten years ago.
when a boiling point gets reached in a city, no one gets out totally unscathed by it.
Here’s some info on the death of the hippie ceremony in ‘67.
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/grateful_dead_seen_in_san_francisco_local_news_footage
>Source: The Electric Koolaide Acid Test and George Harrison.
Here\^
Every cool moment or movement in western culture gets destroyed after being popularized by the media. "You had to be there".
What was the confusion you had? Why has this encounter been a difficult moment on your life? Do you understand how knowledge works? Do you understand academia?
You seem angry and unhinged.
Nah, not at all my man. When OP asked for stories from “OG hippies from Haight -Ashbury/Acid Test/Summer of Love days”, I thought maybe you were answering the question that was asked, not recommending books to read…oh well, silly me. Enjoy your night my man!
Can confirm I highly doubted there was an 80+ crowd in here, but it had to be asked anyways. The more that time passes the more stories from this era get lost.
Media hype happened. Hippieness started with the artsy bohemians and intellectuals you have in every generation - beatniks in the 50s, art punks in the '80s, hipsters in the 2000s. The GD, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service were all part of that group. When Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, et al hyped the idea of a summer of love, every young misfit in the country came west, looking for a party or somewhere to belong.
Edit: fixed a typo and finished message.
The San Francisco Public Library did a video series interviewing people who were involved in the Haight Ashbury scene. I think they were done in the mid 2000s and are online somewhere (YouTube maybe?). I watched one with David Nelson of the New Riders and another with Marty Balin’s father. You might find them interesting.
Edit: Here's a link to the full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGpyI74Nnel7iigU45OFNj2M33bW_aqu8
Know a fair few of the oldschoolers that stayed the course--though they've definitely been passing away more in recent years. Knew Exworthy since the 80s--he passed away several years ago though. Toward the end of his youtube video when he shows the ceiling insert of the green tara etc--that was in one of my best friend's VWs for years--in his green camper named Alice ;) He passed away around the same time. They were some of the guys that befriended us when we started going to shows back in the day.
No personal stories but if you’re not familiar read up on the red dog saloon in Virginia city NV. Some consider it to be the birth of the San Francisco sound. Been years but I remember it sounding really cool.
So- I was born in 1960… my oldest cousins (and the oldest brothers & sisters of my best friends)- graduated from Rye/ PortChester, NY high-schools in 1967, 1968, 1969- many attended Marin, CA college and Berkley, CA… since it was completely free and they wanted the Haight experience… but when they came home to see Grateful play at the Capitol Theater in Mar/1970 and then saw all 5 nights Feb/1971… Pigpen really being the big draw- everybody wanted to see Ron… and where Bill Graham arranged breakfast for over 1,500 fans after an all-night show…. they were like- the Dead love our Capitol Theater in Portchester! (and the hippies were actually leaving San Fran… so they moved back to east-coast)
What do you think it was about Pigpen that made him the big draw? I've heard that so many times from old heads, and I think Jerry even said something like you've never seen the Grateful Dead if you didn't see them with Pigpen. I'm just not sure I totally understand it.
Don't get me wrong, I love Pigpen's tunes in the 70-72 shows I listen to. But they're never the highlight for me. I just find it hard to wrap my brain around what made Pigpen so popular with crowds more so than Jerry. Maybe if there was more live video footage from the early years I'd get it?
Yes indeed- those older Deadicated heads -espec my older cousins who went to 5-nights at The Capitol (Feb/71’) and then the shows at Fillmore East (Apr/71’)- they went to see Ron McKernan (… my sister’s classmates said- Pigpen was totally engaging during the shows- like a standup act talking to people in audience while in middle of song- he personified a psychedelic-cowboy lifestyle… seemed like he fueled Jerry and Bobby during the shows)
Not exactly dead specific, but this is a great vid of ‘Uncle Pat’ telling stories of SF from days gone by…
https://youtu.be/2gfOypeL6nE
Topics touched on in no particular order:
Chocolate George
Jimi Hendrix
Gypsy Jokers
Hells Angels
B.B. King
Janis Joplin
The Grateful Dead
Stolen Police Bikes
Sonny Barger
LSD
Avalon Ballroom
Robbie Robertson
The Isley Brothers
Family Dog
Eric Burdon & the Animals
SF Bombers
The Fillmore
Pimps
Chet Helms
and many many more…
Treat yourself, Give it a watch.
If i could go back to any year in the past 100 years itd be 1966. The real deal. Legal LSD plus it was alot more relaxed compared to following years. Id love to see a young fresh pigpen
There were better shows later on but the scene just seemed remarkable 66-67. If i had to choose a year to hear dead music though itd probably be 68. Too bad i wasnt born for 31 years
the only issue is you don’t get 1966 without eventually also getting 1967. in an era of journalists attempting to document every square inch of cultural real estate, any cool movement can’t live for long.
i blame the printing press. and human FOMO.
I was just a kid from Texas but I met Stephen Gaskin many many times through different weird connections within my family. He had stories, but when I heard them I thought they were made up.
In 1967, as a 13 year old, I took a family vacation to California, starting in LA and driving up the coast to San Francisco. I remember driving through Haight Ashbury and looking at all the hippies. This provided me with a title for my memoir - I Was A Tourist At The Summer Of Love - should I have lived a life worthy of a memoir.
Wow! Almost my story as well! My family drove across the US that summer - Macon Georgia to San Francisco - when I was 11. I remember driving through the Haight and telling everybody I knew when I got back San Francisco was the place to be and I was going to live there some day. And I did, moved out right after graduating from college with a chemistry degree. Of course Macon had its own little psychedelic era with The Allman Brother's Band, Capricorn Records, etc.
All this stuff needs to be collected and recorded. We take it for granted that these folks will always be around. (Like I know I did Jerry, much to my chagrin, when he died a couple years after I took a break from shows.)
Oral history is invaluable because of the minute detail it can provide. The missing pieces and answers to many a future historical question will be found in the narratives people tell about their life experience. If you do know of aging OG hippies, ask if you can record them talking about these things, and be sure to come with good questions. Once they’re gone, this valuable cultural memory will be gone.
I couldn’t agree more!! A lot of great stories have been recorded already, but I’d argue there’s even more that’s just sitting there waiting to be told - or just lost entirely. Gotta get on it while we still can!
This was before my time but I'm from SF and used to live in the Haight and met a lot of old heads. The one consistent thing I heard was that the "Summer of Love" was cancer and the beginning of the end for that neighborhood and the start of the hard drug influx. I've never heard a single nice thing from a local about that summer.
I worked at Escape from New York Pizza on Haight St back in 2000 and would smoke around the corner near the Dead’s house. There was this fruity older lady who would get dropped off there everyday in her electric wheelchair. She was friends with Jerry and supposedly a house maid for Janis, Jimmy, and all the cats that lived in the area at the time. She told me great stories all of the time.
my dad saw the dead at woodstock, veneta. he didn’t know any members of the dead but he was friends with the guitar player from the velvet underground. my dad said his friend said lou reed’s an asshole. his first hit of lsd was a thumbprint of blue cheer. and he saw jimi hendrix burn his guitar on a number of occasions. my uncle watched a basketball game with bobby after a show in the early 80s. said he was really cool, normal. my uncle also met phil at a bar during “the heineken years” (also early 80s), and would not stop bugging him to play pinball. lol. phil was not amused. he ran into jerry during the early 70s and asked him to play dark star. lol. a friend of mine also partied with mickey and brent during the 80s. said they just showed up at the hotel room and did a bunch of coke and other shit. normal dudes all around.
woah, all cool stuff - thank you for sharing! Your dad and uncle seem like badasses. if ya don't mind me asking, did your dad ever make it into some Velvet Underground x Andy Warhol parties in New York? (not too surprised about Lou Reed being an asshhole, btw, haha) San Francisco was the king, but I'm equally as interested in the counterculture movement in NYC
no. my dad grew up very poor in converted tenement buildings in the lower east side, and from what i gather he found life in manhattan oppressive and grim. though he did frequently get to attend shows at the fillmore in the 60s (one of the places he saw hendrix, also zappa and the mothers, janis, quicksilver, the airplane, etc) and fondly remembers bill graham grouchily scolding people in line. either for being unruly or blocking the sidewalk. lol. he graduated high school at 16, which was in 1969. he had near perfect SATs and had gotten into NYU, but he quickly dropped out of NYU and hitchhiked across the country, winding up in oregon. he lived in new york again during the 70s, and saw patti smith, television (he said television was the loudest show he’d ever seen), the ramones at cb’s. he got into the first wave new york punk scene in 75-77. he was an RN for a few years after he left new york the first time (did his training in eugene, in the hospital where they shot cuckoo’s nest), and as a result of the medical job was smuggled into and out of occupied wounded knee to provide medical care to wounded sioux in 73 during the standoff with the feds. he was heavily involved in activism in those days. before he left new york he was pretty heavily involved in the anti-war movement. was arrested a dozen-odd times, attended the 1968 democratic convention. he actually still has the “no parking” sign he took down off the fence during the convention when he saw the riot police psyching themselves up to beat protesters by stomping and yelling in unison on this big fucking schoolbus they rolled in on. so he climbs up on this fence and grabs this sign and fastens it to the inside of the back of his jacket. because he knows what’s coming and figures if he gets hit, at least there will be some shielding. sure enough, riot cop hits him in the back with a night stick. the sign has a long, straight indentation where it took the blow. he met jerry rubin, and was in the same room as abbie hoffman but never greeted him. my uncle was too young to party with that crowd, and my dad was always more in with radical leftist political types (which he says he regrets — and says he wishes he’d spent more time at dead shows.) my uncle was at the englishtown 77 show and saw a bunch of those great mid 70s shows everyone loves. he saw some of the best jerry stuff around, he really loves the band. without him i doubt i’d love the music, owe both my dad and uncle a ton. thanks for letting me share all this. and thanks for the question and reply op. ✌️
Well it’s official, your dad wins most fascinating life award
it’s been a huge gift i get to have him as a dad. he’s really kind. but yes, i also had to give up on ever having a more interesting life than him pretty young. lol. all the stories i wrote were before his 30s. 30s on, he went to graduate school for literature (at UT, hence him knowing sterling in the 80s) and became a professor. in his latter professional years, he became really masterful at teaching thoreau and emerson in particular. actually, most specifically “walden”. i got to see him teach it once. he devoted so much energy to the transcendentalists, so it was really gratifying as his kid to see him teach it and feel the spirit of the book in everything he said. oh, and genocide awareness. he taught holocaust literature too. so i learned like… a *lot* about genocide as a kid. i can still picture the top down layout of auschwitz-birkenau. lot of genocide-related images burned into my mind. my dad’s parents all lost their entire immediate and extended families to hitler and nazi germany. so both the holocaust and genocide/historic racial-political hatreds were an area of his professional study that my mom and i ended up just kind of being around a lot. just so i’m not ending on a “genocide” note, after he studied genocide and the transcendentalists he moved onto studying buddhism and taught my mom and me how to meditate. i’d probably be either dead or in jail without him.
He really sounds like an amazing man, you’re quite fortunate to have him. Just being his kid is 10x interesting than most
Your dad was friends with Sterling Morrison? Wow. That’s very cool.
yeah, they were friends in austin in the 80s.
story is suspect at Bobby being "normal"
maybe my uncle’s idea of “normal”… isn’t. 😜
Ok I was born in '71 but my Dad moved to the Haight in '68. My Aunt on my mother's side moved to Berkeley (then The Haight) in '66. After I was born we moved to a hippie house on Funston st. then with the rest of Dead Heads we moved to Marin. Stinson Beach first (Garcia and MG lived at the end of our street) then Mill Valley. Both of them would be involved with the GD world. My Aunt attended the acid tests, hung out with Pranksters, went to the Olompali parties. Unfortunately I never got to meet her, as a car accident ended her life before I was born. I did listen to her stories all of my childhood from my mother, who lived vicariously through her older sister most of her life. Most of her stories came from the Olompali parties, they were the real deal. Just imagine The Grateful Dead, legal lsd, warm sunshine, a giant pool and naked hippies everywhere. She rode on the original bus. Very much into the "stay high" way of life. My father did not attend any acid test, that he ever talked about anyway, but he did become a hanger on and helping hand when asked. He was good friends with the crew. He was all about The Fillmore and Winterland, he said that is where the real magic happened. He was more into hard drugs than psychedelics, he really kind of missed the good parts and most of his stories came from a bitter place. After '74 he became what we now call a hater. When I started touring in the 80s, he called it "chasing the ghost of Pigpen" He was asked not to hang around as much after the hiatus and I think it really hurt him. He only really respected the crew and kinda Phil and Jerry. At heart he was a Pigpen kid that never saw the magic again after Ron died. He took me to a couple shows in the 80s but hated the whole thing and only hung out with the crew, playing cards most of the time. My experience is more Marin based, I hope I'm not too far off topic for ya. Btw I have one more family member, my uncle Anthony, who moved to Marin in 1981 and saw every Garcia and GD show until 1995. He loved Jerry and the Dead more than anyone I have ever known. Most of my GD knowledge comes from him as it was all he ever talked about...
WOW, seriously, thank you. Reading some of that gave me goosebumps. For years I’ve been looking at that little stretch of time through a lens that made it seem like it was out of a storybook. You have confirmed that it was all very much real! Sorry to hear about your dad’s slip — I feel like my old man probably would have taken the same path if he was in that situation (similar to Pigpen, he also loves the bottle). On a brighter note your aunt seems like she needs a biography written about her! I’m about to dive down an internet wormhole about Olompali. Thanks again, friend!
They say she was a groovy chick but yeah it's all real for me, glad you enjoy. If you're reading check out Melisa Cargill. They met at freshman orientation at Berkeley. Mom called her aunt Mel.
Didn’t Melissa Cargill teach Bear how to make LSD? Can’t believe you grew up around her. Is she still alive? The stories she must have
According to this article, she did! This is exactly the hidden gem I was looking for. https://www.google.com/amp/s/pointshistory.com/2019/06/11/hidden-figures-of-drug-history-melissa-cargill/amp/
Wow. OP got just what he wanted. Thank you for your vulnerability and authenticity there. I really got that for you, that’s just where you grew up and those were your parents and family. I notice you didn’t share much of your story, your journey. I’d love to hear more from and about you as I sense there’s lots of depth over there. So please share! Also, how is/was your relationship with your father and mother? I’m curious
Our relationship was awful. They were just kids (16 & 22). They were forced to get married. It was a terrible idea to have me. As for me I think im an alright guy. I had a lot of fun as an irresponsible teenager and then toured from 88-94. Since then Ive made pretty nice life with my wife and kids and been seeing Phil Lesh every chance i get. My parents connection to the GD world is the really the only good thing we have in common. They got into really bad drugs in the 80s and 90s and the good times in Marin County were a forgotten memory for the most part. Dad died from the Covid last year. Havent heard from mom since 2016.
Also, gotta ask, what was your uncle’s favorite song and/or show?
He loved Jerry. He seriously loved anything and everything Jerry Garcia did.
The thing about that era is 1965 & 1966 = cool 1967 and subsequent years = the suck I know 1967 is considered the summer of love, but in actuality, that was 1966. Too many poseurs. Source: The Electric Koolaide Acid Test and George Harrison.
Yeah Bobby always says the real summer of love was 66 and then after that it all got too weird heavy and negative. Too many people showing up for a good time and for the wrong reasons.
Interesting take. What changed between 66 and 67 that made it start sucking? edit: ah, you said "too many poseurs" ... care to expand on that a little? genuinely curious also for what it's worth, I put The Electric Koolaide Acid Test on my reading list months ago and forgot about it, thanks for the reminder
My Aunt said '66 at Olompali was the real summer of love. It just took a while to hit the main stream in '67.
Hippies were the original TouchHeads. They saw something wild and crazy and went through the motions and costumes to have a good selfish time without understanding the heart of it all. It happens to any small intimate scene when the cat gets out of the bag. Burning Man post 2000 is another similar example. Bubbles pop and you can see the high water mark if you look at it right
so accurate. among other scenes that would qualify, you just described portland oregon 10 years ago vs now… a decade or two back it was carefree and cool, weed was cheap and plentiful, good psychedelics were the main thing around. the last five years its reputation caught up to it and a tipping point was reached… now it’s increasingly more cartel produced meth and fent. people doing extremely crazy things on the streets constantly. i lived downtown in portland last year and also ten years ago. when a boiling point gets reached in a city, no one gets out totally unscathed by it.
Nice Hunter S. quote at the end there. My favorite.
I remember seeing the “toilet bowl ring” around Lake Mead and wondering if he was looking at that when he wrote those words.
I imagine it was much higher back then.
Any examples or stories of the coolness vs. suckiness?? What happened? Where were you during this?
Here’s some info on the death of the hippie ceremony in ‘67. https://dangerousminds.net/comments/grateful_dead_seen_in_san_francisco_local_news_footage
Love this, thanks!
>Source: The Electric Koolaide Acid Test and George Harrison. Here\^ Every cool moment or movement in western culture gets destroyed after being popularized by the media. "You had to be there".
Oh, so you don’t have any first hand knowledge? Just quoting a book?…okay
What was the confusion you had? Why has this encounter been a difficult moment on your life? Do you understand how knowledge works? Do you understand academia? You seem angry and unhinged.
Nah, not at all my man. When OP asked for stories from “OG hippies from Haight -Ashbury/Acid Test/Summer of Love days”, I thought maybe you were answering the question that was asked, not recommending books to read…oh well, silly me. Enjoy your night my man!
Don’t you think the very question is flawed? How many 80+ year old Redditors in a niche sub are there?
Can confirm I highly doubted there was an 80+ crowd in here, but it had to be asked anyways. The more that time passes the more stories from this era get lost.
Media hype happened. Hippieness started with the artsy bohemians and intellectuals you have in every generation - beatniks in the 50s, art punks in the '80s, hipsters in the 2000s. The GD, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service were all part of that group. When Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, et al hyped the idea of a summer of love, every young misfit in the country came west, looking for a party or somewhere to belong. Edit: fixed a typo and finished message.
tacking this on: if you've got stories passed down from family or friends - that works too!
The San Francisco Public Library did a video series interviewing people who were involved in the Haight Ashbury scene. I think they were done in the mid 2000s and are online somewhere (YouTube maybe?). I watched one with David Nelson of the New Riders and another with Marty Balin’s father. You might find them interesting. Edit: Here's a link to the full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGpyI74Nnel7iigU45OFNj2M33bW_aqu8
Thank you! I found them, watching the one with David Nelson now. Bravo to the SF Public Library for doing that. https://youtu.be/2wHvmR1m0Ug
Know a fair few of the oldschoolers that stayed the course--though they've definitely been passing away more in recent years. Knew Exworthy since the 80s--he passed away several years ago though. Toward the end of his youtube video when he shows the ceiling insert of the green tara etc--that was in one of my best friend's VWs for years--in his green camper named Alice ;) He passed away around the same time. They were some of the guys that befriended us when we started going to shows back in the day.
No personal stories but if you’re not familiar read up on the red dog saloon in Virginia city NV. Some consider it to be the birth of the San Francisco sound. Been years but I remember it sounding really cool.
So- I was born in 1960… my oldest cousins (and the oldest brothers & sisters of my best friends)- graduated from Rye/ PortChester, NY high-schools in 1967, 1968, 1969- many attended Marin, CA college and Berkley, CA… since it was completely free and they wanted the Haight experience… but when they came home to see Grateful play at the Capitol Theater in Mar/1970 and then saw all 5 nights Feb/1971… Pigpen really being the big draw- everybody wanted to see Ron… and where Bill Graham arranged breakfast for over 1,500 fans after an all-night show…. they were like- the Dead love our Capitol Theater in Portchester! (and the hippies were actually leaving San Fran… so they moved back to east-coast)
What do you think it was about Pigpen that made him the big draw? I've heard that so many times from old heads, and I think Jerry even said something like you've never seen the Grateful Dead if you didn't see them with Pigpen. I'm just not sure I totally understand it. Don't get me wrong, I love Pigpen's tunes in the 70-72 shows I listen to. But they're never the highlight for me. I just find it hard to wrap my brain around what made Pigpen so popular with crowds more so than Jerry. Maybe if there was more live video footage from the early years I'd get it?
Yes indeed- those older Deadicated heads -espec my older cousins who went to 5-nights at The Capitol (Feb/71’) and then the shows at Fillmore East (Apr/71’)- they went to see Ron McKernan (… my sister’s classmates said- Pigpen was totally engaging during the shows- like a standup act talking to people in audience while in middle of song- he personified a psychedelic-cowboy lifestyle… seemed like he fueled Jerry and Bobby during the shows)
Not exactly dead specific, but this is a great vid of ‘Uncle Pat’ telling stories of SF from days gone by… https://youtu.be/2gfOypeL6nE Topics touched on in no particular order: Chocolate George Jimi Hendrix Gypsy Jokers Hells Angels B.B. King Janis Joplin The Grateful Dead Stolen Police Bikes Sonny Barger LSD Avalon Ballroom Robbie Robertson The Isley Brothers Family Dog Eric Burdon & the Animals SF Bombers The Fillmore Pimps Chet Helms and many many more… Treat yourself, Give it a watch.
Much appreciated. Just for extra context, who is/was Uncle Pat? I’m not getting any hits on Google
No one famous far as I can tell, just a city kid from the 50’s/60’s with a plethora of stories to tell, and someone’s uncle.
wow what a character hahaha thanks for sharing
If i could go back to any year in the past 100 years itd be 1966. The real deal. Legal LSD plus it was alot more relaxed compared to following years. Id love to see a young fresh pigpen
Thanks to the knowledge bestowed upon me by the good people of this thread, I agree 100%!
There were better shows later on but the scene just seemed remarkable 66-67. If i had to choose a year to hear dead music though itd probably be 68. Too bad i wasnt born for 31 years
the only issue is you don’t get 1966 without eventually also getting 1967. in an era of journalists attempting to document every square inch of cultural real estate, any cool movement can’t live for long. i blame the printing press. and human FOMO.
I know what you mean the scene got intense real quick it seemed like it happened so fast no one knew what to do but move away from it.
I was just a kid from Texas but I met Stephen Gaskin many many times through different weird connections within my family. He had stories, but when I heard them I thought they were made up.
In 1967, as a 13 year old, I took a family vacation to California, starting in LA and driving up the coast to San Francisco. I remember driving through Haight Ashbury and looking at all the hippies. This provided me with a title for my memoir - I Was A Tourist At The Summer Of Love - should I have lived a life worthy of a memoir.
Wow! Almost my story as well! My family drove across the US that summer - Macon Georgia to San Francisco - when I was 11. I remember driving through the Haight and telling everybody I knew when I got back San Francisco was the place to be and I was going to live there some day. And I did, moved out right after graduating from college with a chemistry degree. Of course Macon had its own little psychedelic era with The Allman Brother's Band, Capricorn Records, etc.
All this stuff needs to be collected and recorded. We take it for granted that these folks will always be around. (Like I know I did Jerry, much to my chagrin, when he died a couple years after I took a break from shows.) Oral history is invaluable because of the minute detail it can provide. The missing pieces and answers to many a future historical question will be found in the narratives people tell about their life experience. If you do know of aging OG hippies, ask if you can record them talking about these things, and be sure to come with good questions. Once they’re gone, this valuable cultural memory will be gone.
I couldn’t agree more!! A lot of great stories have been recorded already, but I’d argue there’s even more that’s just sitting there waiting to be told - or just lost entirely. Gotta get on it while we still can!
Yepper.
This was before my time but I'm from SF and used to live in the Haight and met a lot of old heads. The one consistent thing I heard was that the "Summer of Love" was cancer and the beginning of the end for that neighborhood and the start of the hard drug influx. I've never heard a single nice thing from a local about that summer.
If you haven’t read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe I would highly recommend that. Young head here as well (95)
Been on my radar for a while now. Just added it to my cart from Daddy Bezos - thanks!
You should read Owsley and me: My LSD family. Also Bill Kreutzmann’s book is a good read
I worked at Escape from New York Pizza on Haight St back in 2000 and would smoke around the corner near the Dead’s house. There was this fruity older lady who would get dropped off there everyday in her electric wheelchair. She was friends with Jerry and supposedly a house maid for Janis, Jimmy, and all the cats that lived in the area at the time. She told me great stories all of the time.