Haite-Ashbury

Discussion in 'Old Hippies' started by TerminalMadness, May 19, 2004.

  1. TerminalMadness

    TerminalMadness Member

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    Hey,

    I'm a newbie, and I'm a long time classic rock fan and I'd heard about Haite Ashbury for years.

    My question is, has anyone ever really been there or seen it? If so, what's it like? Sorry to sound like a dingbat, but I'd really appreciate hearing about it. Thanks.
     
  2. sassure

    sassure Member

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  3. TerminalMadness

    TerminalMadness Member

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    Wow, these links are great, man! Thanks for them! I'm going to look at them all. Thanks again, dude.
     
  4. Micro

    Micro Member

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    I went for a visit twice in 84 & 85. The first time it was cold and raining so I only spent an hour there. The second time I spent the day there and had the time of my life.

    A friend who had been there in the late 70's said when he went it was seedy & run-down. But what I saw was a nice upper middle class business & residential district. There were still hippies but the scene was more diverse.

    My visit was almost a religious experience. We got there and struck up a conversation with this nice older hippie lady in a coffee shop who gave us 2 hits each of blotter with palm trees on it. We started walking towards Golden Gate Park and I noticed a sign in front of a club saying John Cipollina from Quicksilver Messenger Service was playing tonight, so I knew I wanted to go.

    Before we got to the park this hippie came up to me claiming he knew me. We got to talking and walked to this hill in the park where a bunch of people were hanging out and met a few. I had mention to this dude I had dropped some acid and it was starting to kick in. He said pfft!, and pulled out this container with green jell acid and gave us each a hit.

    We parted ways and hung out at the park till it started getting dark. As we headed back towards the Haight we were really starting to peak big time. We got to the club and the place was packed with hippies. Before the show John Cipollina was just hanging out and walked by our table and said hi. I'm sure he knew we were tripping but that was too much. During the show we end up seeing the dude from the park, who comes up to us and says this is just like the sixties. At that point it was almost as if that club was in a time warp and we were in the sixties.

    After the show there were so many freaks hanging outside the club. One of them came up to me and asked if I had a light and pulls out a peace pipe out of his overcoat. And without a care in the world we smoked it right out there on Haight St. We ended up walking all the way back to the hotel which was downtown.

    I'm really interested in hearing from anyone who was there around 1965 - 68.
     
  5. FunkyPhreshMama

    FunkyPhreshMama Visitor

    thanks for sharing that experience micro i really enjoyed reading it. i havent been but wold love to go. even if it isnt the same it wold be a nice trip.
     
  6. Micro

    Micro Member

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  7. homebudz

    homebudz Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    I've been by San Fran Many times and never stopped in.My loss for sure.I enjoyed reading your post.Quicksilver is still one of my favorite groups from the 60's..........and I was there.Have another hit............................
     
  8. Duncan

    Duncan Senior Member Lifetime Supporter

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    Haight Ashbury ! Just the name conjures up images of barefoot people, tie dye, beggars, tiny gardens around trees that are dedicated to someone.

    The Haight Ashbury Free Clinic http://www.hafci.org/ was founded in 1967 and is still in business.

    I spent many summers in the 70s in San Francisco (to get away fromt he eastern heat and humidity) and came to reside there in the 80s. I left in '89, but I make sure to return at least once a year.

    Haight Street is a must for me with each visit. I like the Pork Store Cafe for blueberry pancakes and All You Knead for lunch or dinner. There is also an east African restaurant (somewhat akin to Ethiopian). My tea master at Coffee, Tea and Spice is on Haight Street (the only place where I can buy a delightful tisane called HAVANA DAYDREAMS). In addition, there is Mendel's and FarOut Fabrics (all in one store).

    I used to use the services of UCSF for my medical and dental needs. You can get there through the Haight. If you make it to San Francisco, be sure to walk up and down the street (starting at around Masonic all the way to the entrance of the Golden Gate Park at Stanyan and back to Masonic). You won't be sorry.
     
  9. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Hey TerminalMadness,

    I grew up in a neighborhood near the Haight-Ashbury in the '60s. I was 11 and 12 in '66 and '67. I absorbed the vibration like a fresh sponge.

    What was it like? Brother, you could be moving down Haight street, yet you'd have to cling to the lamp posts, or the shear energy of the magic would lift you right up off the side-walk.

    We were engulfed in a spontaneous freedom whose idealistic beauty could sweep away those desparate chains that anchor us fast to our fears.

    These experiences continue to feed my soul to this day. My life will never be the same.

    Now, for me, a safe Mainstream life is not a life worth living.

    Now, I can never put on that straight-jacket, nor live in the Bedlam of normality.

    So unless you are ready to let lose those anchors, you don't even want to think about the Haight-Ashbury of the '60s.
     
  10. Flowerchild

    Flowerchild Member

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    God m6m, I'm sooooo jealous of you!
     
  11. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Yeh Flowerchild,

    But it wasn't the same for everybody.

    Not everybody was a city cat that always landed on its paws; or as focused and sharp as an arrow let loose.

    Not everybody putting on their sneakers would sprout wings.

    And not everybody could weave in and out of urban traffic like an electron down an eccelerator.

    Most everybody was older than me. Already caught up in their hormonal struggles for sexual status.

    Who's hipper than who? Who knows the coolest musician? Whose got the tickets? Who got back stage?

    But I was too young and too fast to be touched by all that struggle. Only the magic touched me.

    And despite the games and ego, there was enough magic there to effect a chain reaction across an entire generation.
     
  12. Flowerchild

    Flowerchild Member

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    That's why I'm jealous! Btw, I loved what you wrote, as a whole, would that be OK w/you if I put that in a journal? Most of it reminds me of other things in life, not necessarily w/a Haight-Ashbury context...
     
  13. WayfaringStranger

    WayfaringStranger Corporate Slave #34

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    i was there in 99. it was a bunch of old strungout junkies. and a bunch of trustafarians (trust fund babies with dreadlocks) acting like they were homeless, spare changin and selling drugs. you could barely walk there were so many people sittin on the sidewalk. worth a daytrip there, but dont plan your vacationaround it.
     
  14. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Sure Flowerchild,

    What comes out of my mouth from my experience is given freely, and can be put to any use you wish.

    The last time I was there was this past December. The City is now mostly Yuppies.

    So the anal retentive property owning bourgeois mind is overwhelming.

    What they did to the Indians they do to the Homeless; only their choice of weapons now is a suble yet constant psychological warfare.

    Ps. Your signature photo sends a really warm vibration.
     
  15. Flowerchild

    Flowerchild Member

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    Thanks m6m, that is awesome! But you know what's really crazy? What you wrote about Native Americans and homeless, I thought about exactly the same thing today during history!! Yeah, I love that picture, everything fits together: the nice smile, the poster and the flower!
     
  16. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Please Flowerchild,

    I fear for your sensitivity in this world of sorrow. Either join this Civilization of the Apes, or be hunted.

    Don't become truely Human, unless, within this abyss of storms, your heart is warmed by an unseen sun.

    We're all homeless in a land where we have never been at home.
    A land we have never truely entered.
    Whose nuturing interior spirit we have yet to touch.
    A land to whom we are more alien today than the day we first arrived.

    Yet,
    We despise those homeless parasites who will not work raping the earth to satisfy our consuming pride.

    We despise the homeless, who are baptised by the falling rain, whose lined faces are worn by wind, and whose feet sink down to the roots in mud.

    And we despise these homeless, because they are the ones who are at home, while we stand outside looking in.
     
  17. ~Sam~

    ~Sam~ Cosmic Traveler

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    Hi! I lived in the Haight before and during the "Hay Daze". Was there before it turned into a sewer in '66, while it was picked clean of all the flowers in the Park '67, during the quick transition from psychedelic drugs to smack, and when it turned into a Head Shop Tourist Trap.

    I was back out there for my Niece's wedding in '90... The Haight is still there, so are the little shops, and there's a new bunch of street people sitting against the buildings.

    We spoke to one guy who must have been on the same street corner for the last 30 years....
     
  18. Zoomtube2

    Zoomtube2 Member

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    In 1967, my buddy Nat and I left Greenwich Village and drove cross-country in a 1950 Chevy and got an apartment ($55 a month) at 63 Octavia St. at the corner of Haight St. The intersection of Haight and Ashbury was about a 15 block, uphill walk. About a 8 block area on either side of that famous intersection was where the action was, there and in Golden Gate Park. Drug dealers every other doorway, anything you wanted. We supported ourselves by selling newspapers in Chinatown, took our first acid trips (Purple Haze, no less), got our first doses of clap (me, twice), met Charles Manson (before he killed anyone), and had a rip-roaring good time. In November, I marched in the "Death of Hippie" parade and had my picture in the New York Times Sunday Magazine--that"s me with black t-shirt, long hair and beard, and love beads. (Look it up at your local library-- issue of Nov. 23, I think. It's on microfilm.)

    I'll make this post longer soon, but now my grandchildren are bellowing to go out to my farm and hear the 17 year locusts-- they're sawing madly away.
     
  19. Flowerchild

    Flowerchild Member

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    Aaaw, m6m, you write so awesome! I could sink into your words! God, how much I wish I had the ability to write and play with words like you!
    @Zoomtube: Sorry for the stupid question, but who is Charles Manson?
    Love you all!
     
  20. m6m

    m6m Member

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    Playing with words? That's how I shake my cage.

    Who's Charlie Manson? Sister, most of us from those days would like to forget who Charlie is, but he just won't go away.
    I won't go into all the gorey details, but suffice it to say that Charlie was a mixed up little fellow who created a cult commune that went very wrong.
    There's a thread about Charlie in the Hippie Movement Forum right now.
    Also, there are several books about Charlie and his followers.
    It's not a simple story, they were at the center of a minor national hysteria, and at the center of an on going social debate.
     

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