cannabisnews.com: Summer of Love Redux










  Summer of Love Redux

Posted by CN Staff on August 27, 2007 at 06:38:56 PT
By Mary Anne Ostrom, Mercury News 
Source: Mercury News  

San Francisco -- It's been 40 years since 100,000 "flower children" descended on San Francisco and put Haight-Ashbury on the map. Talk to those who were there, and they get big smiles on their faces."I lived it," said Terry Newfield of San Diego on a $20-a-head walking tour of the Haight. Standing across Ashbury Street from the fabled crash pad of the Grateful Dead at No. 710 with her digital camera, she added, "It feels good to go back."
A quintessential San Francisco event, the Summer of Love fused innocence and wisdom at a time of sexual and drug experimentation. With slogans like "Make Love Not War," and "Flower Power," its leaders pushed wide-eyed idealism along with mind-altering psychedelics.In San Francisco, a city that still embraces political and social experimentation, the summer of 1967 still holds a precious place in meaning and memories.Forty years later, people recall the good buzz and have mostly forgotten the dark side. But many also ponder: What happened to the idealism?"Once there was a time in Camelot when people had a different value system. They didn't go around saying `greed is good,' " said Dr. David Smith, the father of the free health care clinic movement who opened the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in June 1967. But it also was a summer built "on marketing and myth," he added. "If you lived there, you knew it was a very complex time, a very dark time with lots of conflict and turmoil."Smith left the clinic and "the street world," as he put it, a year ago for a more chic office near Fisherman's Wharf and wealthier clientele, but he still lives in the neighborhood and supports free clinics through his family foundation.Others say fascination with the anniversary, which has spawned art shows, concerts and forums worldwide, can be tied to the similar social and political feelings that persist today, namely an unpopular war and alienation from political authority.Former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a.k.a. "the hippie lawyer" who defended hundreds facing dope charges that summer, today represents medicinal-marijuana clinics seeking storefronts in San Francisco."Some things you go, `We've come a long way.' And others make you ask, `How far have we come?' "Today, Haight-Ashbury is full of trendy boutiques and working professionals and the Victorians are painted in soothing color schemes. Walking and driving tours display the key sites of hippiedom for curious tourists and those on a pilgrimage to youthful memories.Few remnants of the counterculture remain.Yet reliving the spirit of that summer, and particularly playing the music that marked the era, has been a full-time occupation for many of the musicians who launched into the big time in 1967."The focus of the Summer of Love was condensed and it became magnified and diffused as it went out in the world," said Country Joe McDonald, the Berkeley singer whose "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag" became that summer's anti-war anthem.This summer he's performing it almost nightly, fresh off a 21-city "Hippie Fest" tour. "We're a morale booster. We remind people of who they are and where they came from," he said.Lee Houskeeper, a booking agent for seminal 1960s rock bands The Doors and Jefferson Airplane, among others, laughed as he declared, "San Franciscans have a preservationist streak and it runs deep." Today, as a San Francisco publicist, he says, "We're fiercely proud of events about which the rest of the world calls us cuckoo."In fact, 1967 was a year of radical changes elsewhere, but perhaps nowhere as much as San Francisco. It started with the Human Be-In, a gathering that drew 10,000 people to Golden Gate Park in January, and ended with a mock funeral for the "Hippie, devoted son of the mass media." In between, the Grateful Dead released its first studio album, Rolling Stone magazine published its first issue, the Monterey International Pop Festival featured Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The Gray Line Bus Company added Haight-Ashbury to its city tour and Time Magazine issued a cover: "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture."Today, that time evokes a lot of soul searching, as those who participated, observed or studied the event reconcile the happy commune-living hippie experience with rampant sex and drugs, and later violence.Rape, murder, heroin and speed addiction emerged within months of the spring 1967 release of Scott McKenzie's song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)."But the time also spawned a new way of thinking about personal rights and freedoms as youths from around the country converged in a place that promised free thinking and living, and a good time."It shifted the concept of women, it shifted the concept of sexuality, it shifted a generation of youth" out of the economic mainstream, said Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley who studies happiness and co-edits Greater Good magazine."We are the great experiment in individualism and also in materialism and prioritizing economic self-interest. The Summer of Love represented a deep alternative, which is devote yourself to community."By embracing the Summer of Love, people are grasping for an alternative again. Surmised Keltner, "That's what people are longing for."For some who experienced that summer, drugs, in fact, got in the way of what they perceived was a greater mission, ending the war in Vietnam and battling for equality."Those of us trying to make social and political impact in the civil rights movement and anti-war movement had our problems with sex, drugs and rock and roll," said David Harris. His tenure as Stanford University student body president ended in summer 1967 and led him to create a national anti-Vietnam draft-resistance movement. An author, Harris is now writing about Bill Walsh's glory days as coach of the San Francisco 49ers."We had to convince people it wasn't enough to just get stoned and listen to good music," Harris said. "That wasn't going to change the world, even if I did enjoy my share of it."But much of the Summer of Love was about the music and the launch of the San Francisco sound that made its way around the world - even to upstate New York, where well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist/musician Roger McNamee was growing up.McNamee's band, Moonalice, includes Pete Sears, formerly of Jefferson Airplane, and Jack Casady, also of Airplane and Hot Tuna. Moonalice will play Union Square at lunchtime Tuesday.McNamee was only 11 in 1967, but he listened to the music embraced by his older siblings."I don't think this is about nostalgia," said the founder of Menlo Park private equity firm Elevation Partners. "This is a coming together of the lovers of the music. That, and an increasing recognition that the time we live in bears an uncanny resemblance to the political, social and economic times of the very late 1960s."Added McNamee, who helped the Grateful Dead in its later years, "The Summer of Love was more of a media event than a social event. Many have suggested that anniversaries are economic events rather than true social phenomenons."The 2007 celebration culminates Sunday, when hundreds of musicians will put on an eight-hour concert at Golden Gate Park's Speedway Meadows. Bring a flower and get in free, seriously.Standing on Ashbury Street this week, a Haight tour guide who goes by only the name Izu, tells her captive audience that included Newfield and her husband, of San Diego, and a family from Vancouver, British Columbia, that "the Summer of Love never ended."She then crossed the street and launched into stories of the neighborhood's sordid activities and ensuing mayhem, ending with a description of Jerry Garcia's fatal heart attack in 1995 at a Marin County drug rehab center after a life of hard living."I'm hoping we remember more than just the sex, drug and rock and roll party," said former Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully.After listening to the tour-guide rap, he reached into his car to show the group photos of happier times in front of 710 Ashbury. "That party caused a lot of pain, some very stressing social disorder. That wasn't our goal."If You're Interested:For more information on the Sept. 2 concert in Golden Gate Park, go to: http://www.2b1records.com/summeroflove40th/Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)Author: Mary Anne Ostrom, Mercury News Published: August 27, 2007Copyright: 2007 San Jose Mercury NewsContact: letters mercurynews.comWebsite: http://www.mercurynews.com/Related Articles:Groovy: Summer of Love, Message of Lovehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23053.shtmlThe Hippies Were Right All Along -- We Knew That http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23277.shtml

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Comment #25 posted by FoM on September 01, 2007 at 08:40:39 PT
Like Willie Nelson Said
I'm glad it wasn't spinach or it could have killed me! LOL!
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Comment #24 posted by Hope on September 01, 2007 at 08:31:36 PT
Hey. Just heard it ...
Some bad spinach going around. Don't eat the spinach! It could make you sick.Yes. Again.http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/fs/food-disease/news/aug3107spinach-jw.html
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Comment #23 posted by FoM on September 01, 2007 at 07:22:01 PT
museman
So very true. I love the world today! 
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Comment #22 posted by FoM on September 01, 2007 at 07:11:33 PT
Check Out This Article from The Economist UK
It is making my morning very pleasant.Summer of Love: Are You Going To San Franciscohttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23302.shtml
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Comment #21 posted by Hope on August 31, 2007 at 23:34:44 PT
BGreen Comment 16
Lol! 
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Comment #20 posted by museman on August 31, 2007 at 22:45:51 PT
Where it's at
What we knew inside,brought to the surface through trial, tribuation, war and pain,framed with joy and other colors thanthat war torn stainupon our fathers trousers,was hope for the new, and the knowledge that love was out travelin' train.Where e'er our inner hearts we carried,brought out in the cirle and shared together,established the tone and affected the weather,that was where the rainbow promise found it's gold,not in any city, place, or hold.Those things are but shadows of where we have passed,but what we carry within is the part that will last.
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Comment #19 posted by BGreen on August 31, 2007 at 21:44:22 PT
FoM
I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh.We'll just laugh, no matter what the sour pusses think.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #18 posted by FoM on August 31, 2007 at 21:12:08 PT
More on The Concert
Excerpt: "All you need to do is just hop on a bus, Gus, and get yourself out to the park," Houskeeper said.At least one performer is taking that advice. Country Joe McDonald, a Berkeley resident, plans to hop on BART."That's my plan," he said. "I can bring my guitar along with me."While he's not a regular BART rider, he said it seemed like the best option: "It seems convenient given the difficulty of the logistics of getting there by car."And, McDonald said, he may serenade passengers as the train heads toward San Francisco."Yeah, why not?" he said. "Barry (The Fish) Melton and I did some singing on the ferries after the Bay Bridge went down (in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989). We made quite a bit of money from people giving us tips."http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/30/MNKTRRMIR.DTL
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Comment #17 posted by FoM on August 31, 2007 at 21:00:30 PT
BGreen
That's so funny. What in the world is wrong with laughing? I don't know. I've decided that there are people who want to be happy and people who want to be miserable. The choice is ours. I'll take the happy.
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Comment #16 posted by BGreen on August 31, 2007 at 20:44:54 PT
What a difference 40 years makes
"Everybody stay away from the brown antacid! The brown antacid going around is a bad trip!LOLSorry, I just couldn't help myself. ;PThe Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #15 posted by FoM on August 31, 2007 at 20:37:00 PT

Hope
I hope they make a DVD of this Summer of Love Anniversary Concert. I would love to see it. I read they are shutting down the Bay Bridge until Tuesday morning but look what someone said in this article. I thought it was funny.Organizers of Sunday's Summer of Love concert in Golden Gate Park, which will feature a reunited Moby Grape, Taj Mahal, original cast members from the musical "Hair" and dozens of bands that got their start in San Francisco during the 1960s, said they aren't worried the bridge's closure will spoil the party."It's really a great plot by all these hippies to make sure we leave no carbon footprint," joked Lee Housekeeper, a spokesman for the event. "If Caltrans didn't close the bridge, we would have."___On the Net:http://2b1records.com/summeroflove40th/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/30/state/n131351D98.DTL
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Comment #14 posted by Hope on August 31, 2007 at 19:57:24 PT

I think there may be quite a few Hippies
in New Mexico.Yay!!! For the Hippies in New Mexico!Hope you all are doing well.New Mexico has a Southwestern, American Indian, Spanish, Bohemian, Hippie, artist, scientist feel to it. I think. It sparkles. It really does. A lot of it does.I love visiting there.
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Comment #13 posted by Hope on August 31, 2007 at 19:47:01 PT

The dancing
was great. Had "Some Funky Ole' Soul, There, Ya'll"
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Comment #12 posted by Hope on August 31, 2007 at 19:45:12 PT

Post 9 should have said,
"It was the extreme fierceness of youth... as youth can often be, and that generation's one, in the scheme of things, was especially "Fierce". It was amazing "Fierce".Instead of "It was the extreme fierceness of youth... as youth can often be, and that one, in the scheme of things, was especially "Fierce". It was amazing "Fierce"."It was the era of our youth and it got people's attention. It was different. Like the Twenties. The Roaring Twenties. The Sixties "Roared", too. Those times, the Twenties and the Sixties were "Different", "Extreme", if you will, and left a long lasting image in people's minds and really had an effect, and apparently, a long lasting one, on society.Maybe.
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on August 31, 2007 at 12:10:56 PT

Summer Of Love 40th Anniversary Free Concert
August 31, 2007Four decades after thousands of teens descended on San Francisco's Haight Street with flowers in their hair, musicians from the '60s and beyond come together to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love with this free concert at Speedway Meadow this Sunday. Planned by the same group that presented the huge 2005 memorial concert tribute to psychedelic founding father and pioneering promoter Chet Helms, the show features many celebrated and unsung artists from the era taking the stage in Golden Gate Park.Among the bigger names participating include Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who brings his regular collaborator poet Michael McClure to the stage along with onetime Ratdog rhythm section of drummer Jay Lane and bassist Rob Wasserman; songwriter and vocal anti-war activist Country Joe McDonald; blues archivist and powerful performer Taj Mahal; Youngbloods founder and noted solo artist Jessie Collin Young; British jazz-funk keyboard phenom Brian Auger; lap-steel guitar hero Freddie Roulette; founding members of Blue Cheer Dickie Peterson and Leigh Stephens; and noted keyboardists George Michalski and Pete Sears in special four-hand boogie woogie piano performance.There will also be a number of performances by reunited bands and local institutions like Canned Heat, Lydia Pense and Cold Blood, New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Charlatans, Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks and Moby Grape. Besides the live music from the stage, figures from the era such as Woodstock legends Artie Kornfeld and Wavy Gravy, KFOG personality Scoop Nisker, former SF DA Terrance Hallinan, marijuana legalization advocates Richard Eastman and Dennis Peron, SF Mime Troupe composer Bruce Barthol, actor/comedian Howard Hesseman and Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic founder David E. Smith will be speaking between acts. For more information:Date: September 2, 2007Location: San FranciscoVenue: Speedway MeadowTime Info: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.Price Info: freeCopyright: 2007 KTVUhttp://www.ktvu.com/events/14007629/detail.html
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on August 28, 2007 at 20:12:30 PT

Hope
It was just a short time but many of the people who were at Woodstock or just part of that era went on and followed that dream. Neil still is living his Hippie Dream. Many of us are still alive and care more now then even and that is a good thing. We learned from that time how to live.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on August 28, 2007 at 19:45:50 PT

"...even if it was just for short time..."
FoM,That's youth, I think. But it was kind of explosive and in your face, a new way and an old way and the music was good. Very good. The idealism and the hope and the feeling of a new freedom and taking on the world and winning. It was good. But it passed. Of course it passed, even though we didn't think it would. Why bother doing that? What good would it have done. What purpose would it have served? Thinking that it wouldn't last? But everything passes. Everything, necessarily, becomes History. Some things are very memorable though. It was the extreme fierceness of youth... as youth can often be, and that one, in the scheme of things, was especially "Fierce". It was amazing "Fierce"."Sometimes when I think of the flower children and happy people exploring their minds together how free people felt even if it was just for short time in history."

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Comment #8 posted by afterburner on August 28, 2007 at 18:40:36 PT

YouTube Captures History Repeating Itself
{
Rape, murder, heroin and speed addiction emerged within months of the spring 1967 release of Scott McKenzie's song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)."
}The decline of San Francisco after the Summer of Love was documented in "Thorns of the Flower Children" Woodstock Nation by Abbie Hoffman, collected in
THE BEST OF ABBIE HOFFMAN anthology of his writings - (eBay item 200130159240 end time Sep-15-07 195603 PDT)
http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-BEST-OF-ABBIE-HOFFMAN-anthology-of-his-writings_W0QQitemZ200130159240QQcmdZViewItemRape, murder, Oxycontin and meth addiction emerged within months of the Summer of Legalization. Can you say agents provacateur? Montebello: Stop the SPP Protest  
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robmaguire/sets/72157601634926198/Fake summit protesters provoked violence: Union.
Canadian Press.
August 22, 2007 at 3:01 PM EDT
http://tinyurl.com/2teaadTheStar.com - Canada - Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters.
MONTREAL–With the proof caught on video, Quebec provincial police were forced to admit yesterday that three undercover agents were playing the part of protesters at this week's international summit in Montebello, Que.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/249429Voices: Masquerading protesters.
Aug 24, 2007 12:51 PM. 
We asked if police should be allowed to masquerade as protesters at demonstrations. Here's what readers had to say. 
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/249523
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on August 27, 2007 at 18:22:50 PT

Hope
Sometimes when I think of the flower children and happy people exploring their minds together how free people felt even if it was just for short time in history.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on August 27, 2007 at 18:19:23 PT

Actually...
The article didn't mention Love Beads, so don't wonder if you missed that part. They just came to my mind as I was reading it. Flowers, Love Beads, Peace signs, and long hair. Definitely signs of the time.
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Comment #5 posted by Hope on August 27, 2007 at 18:14:26 PT

Love Beads
Haven't thought about that in awhile. 
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on August 27, 2007 at 18:13:23 PT

Bring a flower and get in free, seriously.
That's good. It captures some of the spirit of that time.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 27, 2007 at 10:00:17 PT

whig
That's the one I thought it was too. Maybe they will release a DVD of the event in the future. I sure would buy it for my collection.
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Comment #2 posted by whig on August 27, 2007 at 09:57:52 PT

FoM
That's the one I was sorry I have to miss but we're going to visit family for the holiday weekend.
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on August 27, 2007 at 07:04:31 PT

Bull's-eye!
CN BC: Editorial: Campaign Should Pass On Pothttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n995/a06.html?397A Bull's-eye!
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