San Francisco
January mornings are cold in California. With a thick layer of frost covering the car, Bri and I embarked on our drive north to San Francisco. Gathering my thoughts, staring down the gauntlet of LA rush hour, I ashed my cigarette, lifted my scoldingly hot Starbucks to my lips, turned the ignition and pulled out into the glowing vein of traffic. The sounds of blues guitar and the howls of Janis Joplin easily drowned out the sound of our tires on the road. Gaining speed the sun was coming up in the east, LA in our rear-view, we hit the open road.
At San Louis Obispo our route diverged from the El Camino Real, onto the more picturesque highway 1 that clings to the side of the dramatic and winding coastline of California. As the clouds dispersed the warmth of the sun on my skin struck me with purpose, with a single glimpse over at my co-pilot, it was evident that we were in a very extraordinary place. Full of life and colour, taking the time to allow a place to fill you with joy epitomizes nature for me. And so the dreams of retiring on the edge of a cliff, hanging over the violent Pacific Ocean, proceeded to fuel our imagination and conversation. California was starting to win a slice of my heart.
A couple of days later, after a few food and alcohol induced comas, I afforded myself the time to bypass seeking out my next gastronomical delight and submerged myself in the daily life of San Francisco. A few things became apparent to me. The rhythm and hum of the city is broken into cultural boroughs, where immigrant populations have established miniature versions of home, in a melting pot of cultural diversity and cuisine. The lifeblood that seems to connect these areas are the streams of homeless people rummaging through bins in the back of restaurants, and dragging mattresses up the street in the hopeful attempt of finding a hollow for a good night’s sleep. I was confronted by the overwhelming evidence of comfortability alongside the vast number of homelessness.
The next morning I woke up to a typical San Francisco day. The slow constant patter of rain was invisible against the low lit, misty backdrop of the city. I was waiting for the moment, where the city would show me its true colours. Fighting the elements we pulled up in the Haight/Ashbury district that lies next to Golden Gate Park. This little hub of the city is a time portal back into the days of flower power, psychedelics, and anti war sentiment of a people united by vision and music. The street vibe is coupled with monuments to fallen rock stars such as Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. You can’t help but feel that once upon a time the lyrics of these people breathed life into an ideology that set the world on fire. The streets are filled with politically charged slogans and colourful murals that warm the hearts of anyone who are akin the same dreams of a generation.
After a hike up and down the street we ended up seeking refuge from the rain in ‘The land of the Sun’, a small gift shop hiding between the litter of smoke shops and vintage clothing stores. We were warmly greeted by Paul, his store is full of all the little nik naks that were left behind in the 60’s and 70’s. Tie died t-shirts, peace slogans and Grateful Dead imagery are plastered on everything from lighters to coffee mugs. This place is a treasure trove for anyone wanting to outfit their lives with all the necessary paraphernalia of the city’s most sacred cultural exports.
Paul is an ex military man who diverged from the path of war just in time for the summer of 1967. A short browse through the store quickly led to a show and tell of all the stories and memorabilia from the summer of love. Hearing stories of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin anonymously walking the streets left something to be pondered. Feeling as though everyone was on the same train for the same cultural journey is something that is hard to fathom today. Letting the summer of 1967 set the pretence for how people lived their lives was by far the most radical mass movement of the time, but questionably sustainable. Paul had me in a trance after hearing the countless stories of Jerry Garcia and The Dead putting on free concerts in Golden Gate Park, and Jefferson Airplane shacking up for a summer in the city to play local bars and write music. However in a desire to understand the city and how it has undergone its own transformation I asked one pertinent question that shifted the tone of the conversation. I asked Paul if he would live those days again. At this his ears pricked up, and his square glasses dropped down his nose, with great resolution he said “No!”. Paul proceeded to unfold the history of the area. At the time San Francisco was on the brink of something huge, people no longer wanted to fight wars, the city was unified by its radical divergence from the norm in America. At the core of this was a relaxed policy toward drug use. People were unified by the comfortability and happiness in the endeavour to expand their perception of themselves with drugs. Soft drugs like mushrooms and marijuana were socially accepted, but with this blasé attitude came a certain vulnerability. The Haight was the cultural epicentre for all San Francisco offered the implanted hippy in the 60’s and 70’s. Paul cites one key moment in the evolution of the city, when “Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels gained control of lower Haight. The police had no control over addiction and violence that transpired with hard drugs, and as a result the city sold its innocence”.
The city of love shortly turned into a city of addiction. Forty years later I couldn’t help but link that to the confronting level of addiction and homelessness in the city today. All of a sudden Janis, Jimi and Morrison weren’t around to preach and pontificate about excess as they had succumb and retreated to the darkest crevasse of their own souls. Musician’s disbanded and hippies began to trade flowers for ties and suits. I urge people who identify with this era to re live the nostalgia of this city’s greatest monument, the people. The echoes of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead are still vibrating the streets of San Francisco. The whispers of Jimi playing in a local bar, or a free concert in Golden Gate Park, still put a smile on the face of the people who can imagine what it was like to live in a time where material success didn’t matter, and stardom was something misunderstood for all the right reasons.
By Joshua Thaisen
