The Summer of Love Panel Discussion

The numbers are beyond frightening now. I had attended the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1997. Stories of Hippies and the Summer of Love seemed ancient then. Now it's the Fortieth Anniversary of The Summer of Love. We went to Kanbar Hall in the San Francisco Jewish Community Center for "The Gathering of the Tribes and Summer of Love" with Joel Selvin. It was Tuesday night, January 9. The event was presented by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society.
It was billed as a panel discussion. With the speakers involved, this promised to be more than the usual discussion of the Sixties. It was one of a monthly series of lectures by the San Francisco Historical Society. The ad encouraged Sixties garb. "Tie dye tee shirt and '60s attire encouraged." I noticed a few older couples. They had to be regulars at these lectures. The suits, ties and more formal dress gave them away. They must come to every lecture, I thought. A couple looked surprised to see the place full of Hippies.
Most of the crowd were the now typical group of aging Hippies, or whatever you want to call them. There would be discussion later about what exactly a Hippie was. Many in the crowd looked really old. There were a lot of tie dye tee shirts. My wife, Kathy looked around and said this crowd REALLY looked old. No, this is normal now. The generation that had said not to trust anyone over thirty was now dealing with the dividing line between middle age and old age.
They served refreshments in the hall in front of the auditorium. Soft drinks and juice. There was a well dressed older lady ahead of me. She looked like a regular. "What? No wine tonight?" she asked. The guy behind me quickly spoke up, "No, but we've got plenty of acid!" He had a gray pony tail, and a gleam in his eye. This is a great start, I thought. While we waited he told me about a friend's wake. Someone had mixed LSD in the potato salad. "Some people had a horrible experience." We both agreed that dosing the potato salad wasn't cool. I remembered the stories from back then. If you didn't want to be tripping, don't eat or drink anything at the party, they used to say. I got a can of Coke.
Home movies of the Be-In were playing on a screen as we walked in. It was definitely Golden Gate Park. The old home movie footage was silent. It made the people on-screen look frozen in time. People were dancing with beaming faces. There were short, jerky shots of the stage. Sixties music played lightly in the auditorium. Most of the songs were by Janis and Big Brother.
The place was filling up. It was a big auditorium. I'd guess 600 had come. There were a few remarks by the people from the San Francisco Historical Society. They were obviously pleased by the turnout. We were told about the plans to make the empty Mint building in downtown a museum of San Francisco History. Typical San Francisco. It was a great idea, but it should have been done long ago. Wisely they decided to "talk about it more next time."
Just about every seat is taken. Latecomers are ushered in. Many look surprised that so many showed up. One guy was in the spirit of things. As he walked the aisle looking for a seat he gave the old conspiratorial offer: "Weed... acid... speed." The old pusher mantra.
The show started with a disembodied voice, who I think was Selvin, reading the short version, a quick synopsis of the history of the Sixties. The huge changes the decade brought us. Yes, it was a wild and crazy time of sweeping, turbulent social and political change. There was more of a local angle. In the early Sixties, the Haight neighborhood didn't seem like the place that would foster social change or a cultural revolution. It had been a blue collar Irish neighborhood. But, it was a place where college students could rent a room in a Victorian building for $20 a month. A lot of San Francisco State students lived in the Haight, and spread the word.
The Shapiros were the couple who had brought the home movie footage. They were introduced. They stood, turned around and gave the crowd a friendly wave. With long gray hair, they really looked like Hippie grandparents.
There were short introductions of our speakers, and their counterculture credentials. There was a bit of confusion after the introductions and our announcer from the Historical Society had to go backstage and bring the speakers onstage. Maybe no one wanted to be sitting out there alone.
There were five people sitting onstage around a coffee table. It's a bit of a cliche, but they really did look like a group of college professors, with the possible exception of David Getz. He looked like more of a hipster, with a tee shirt and black beret.
Peder Jones sat at the far left. ("This is not a typo. His name is spelled P E D E R," the program told us.") He had been an artist and now runs "a firm that writes educational materials for book, software and Internet publishers." He's tall and rangy. Despite his jeans and sandals, he has the look of a mountain man, an American pioneer. He looked like he must have been a wild man back in those days.
Jim O'Donnell was a student at Berkeley when the Free Speech Movement started. He looks like the oldest on the panel. He's tall, balding in front, and wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. He was studying to be an engineer, but found the political scene in Berkeley distracting. "We had the Free Speech Movement. We had the Filthy Speech Movement." So he moved to San Francisco and wound up living a block away from Haight Street just as things started to happen. "I managed to make my way to Golden Gate Park from there. It seemed like a long journey back then." He eventually became an editor and publisher.
Marilyn Lucas is involved with San Francisco History, especially the Rock Poster Society. She grew up in San Francisco and was a Galileo High School Student. "A long time resident and part of the North Beach scene."
David Getz gave up teaching art to become the drummer for Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The moderator is Joel Selvin, who is the San Francisco Chronicle's Senior Rock Reporter. He's gray and balding. I have to admit to a bit of jealousy. This guy has seen and heard a lot of Rock History. He did a great job as a moderator and showed a sharp sense of humor. The speakers didn't need much prodding, but there were times when this conversation could have wandered anywhere.
During the evening, Selvin tried to guide the discussion with three questions. 1. How did you get to, and why did you go to The Be-In? 2. What effect did the Sixties have on you? Or, what did the Sixties do to you? 3. Did the counter culture and events of the Sixties make any difference?
Selvin asks each speaker how they found out about the Be-In and why they went. Peder Jones says he was in Santa Cruz and it was a great, sunny day. If it had been raining, he probably wouldn't have gone.
O'Donnell says he went to see the writers. "Because that's what I wanted to be." Ginsberg, Snyder, McClure and others were there. O'Donnell reminds us that we forget how bad the Fifties were, especially if you were "in any way non-conformist." "Remember The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit?"
Several speakers comment on the discovery that there were a lot of people out there who were at least nonconformist, if not more. It was the first mass gathering of the freaks.
O' Donnell says the idea for the Be-In might have started in L.A. There were plans for thousands to get together for a smoke-in. "So nobody could get busted." Somehow the idea drifted North. I might be missing the gist of some of the speakers, especially O'Donnell. He's witty and sarcastic with a subtle sense of humor.
Getz talks a bit about the scene in Los Angeles. After a gig there one night, he wound up stranded and had to carry his drum set slung over his shoulder. He was with Page Browning, who was later a Merry Prankster. "I think he's dead now." Browning used to dress in Medieval garb, with long flowing robes and feathered hats. He usually looked like someone from the Renaissance Faire. Getz said they walked around all night, fueled by acid. They stopped at a coffee shop. The regulars in L.A. didn't bat an eye at what would have been an outlandish scene anywhere else in the country at that time. Getz said that maybe they were used to such strange scenes from all the movie and show business people there.
It was an amazing time. O'Donnell learned that, "My wife had joined something called the League for Eternal Freedom. She went from an academic to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Unfortunately, not in that order."
He mentioned that today was an auspicious date. (Or did he mean 1/14, the actual date of the Be-In?) It was the birthday of Elvis and Richard Nixon (Peder Jones does a quick Nixon imitation, "I am not a crook!") It's also Janis Joplin's birthday. "No!" Getz says quickly. Today is not Janis' birthday.
Selvin and Getz admit they weren't at the Be-In. Selvin says that "believe it or not" those in the political scene in Berkeley didn't consider San Francisco political enough. "There wasn't any action." So, they blew off going across the Bay to the Be-In. He had already dropped out of high school, "There was too much going on," and he spent most of his time "across the street" from Berkeley High School, at the University. "Where something was happening every day."
Getz says that the band Big Brother was moving that weekend from Lagunitas, and they had a gig in L.A. I got the impression both had already dealt with answering questions about missing this seminal event, but they still had to admit once in a while during the night that "I wasn't there." Getz tells us that for years people told him how great the band sounded that day. People insist they heard Big Brother that day. "But, we weren't there." Then, reminiscent of the line "If you remember the Sixties, you weren't there!" he says, "Maybe we were there."
Marilyn Lucas knew she would be at the Be-In. "If you weren't there, you're square!" She's the only female onstage, and at times takes a back seat in the conversation. She talks a little about being exposed to the Beat scene on North Beach's Grant Street. She tells us about how magical and special the whole day was. She's wearing the same necklace she wore to the Be-In that day.
Lucas talks about Lenore Kandel reading from 'The Love Book' at The Be-In. Kandel had been arrested and prosecuted for writing 'The Love Book.' The moral arbiters of the time had deemed it too erotic. The San Francisco Police Department was offended, and Kandel and her publisher were arrested. A couple of years ago Lucas saw 'The Love Book' in a display case at the San Francisco Public Library. It was being shown as an example of great poetry written in San Francisco. Seeing changes and acceptance like this are great, but it is a reminder of how divisive and hostile things had once been.
Getz talks about being an art student in San Francisco during the very early Sixties, "and all that scene." He went to Europe for a year. While there he kept getting letters from friends telling him that something extraordinary was happening in San Francisco.
After he returned, he wound up becoming the drummer for the up and coming band Big Brother and the Holding Company. At one point, he had to choose between the Art and Rock worlds. It actually was a tough decision. He had been making a living at Art, and enjoying the scene. Suddenly he's in a hot rock and roll band. You could feel a SURGE of energy at the time, he tells us. People in the crowd groan. (I wasn't aware at the time of Bush's new Iraq strategy, a "Surge" of new troops, which had been announced that day.)
Selvin calls for a show of hands. "How many here were Hippies?" The auditorium is full. At least two thirds raise their hands. "Who was at the Be-In?" I'll assume people are honest about this, but the result is amazing. About half the crowd raise their hands. People look around for a minute, and then there is spontaneous applause. It was impressive. Heck, I was just starting high school a world away in Chicago when all this was going on.
The ad had read: "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are at the core of a discussion by a panel." The Sixties counterculture was about rebellion, art and music, but it was time to talk about "the elephant in the room" LSD. It was one of the more interesting conversations on Acid that I've heard in a while.
The legacy of the Sixties is marred by drugs and all the problems they brought. Selvin: There had been a movement before, but during the Sixties the big difference was drugs, especially LSD. The panelists talk about how positive it was in the beginning. "Believe it or not." It seems naive now, but Acid was The Gateway to higher consciousness. Getz says, "We really were pioneers."
Acid was still legal, but there were some who said only "qualified" people should be doing it. This changed in the Haight. Like everything else, it was meant to be shared. Selvin says Marty Balin told him about handing out "handfuls" of it at shows... "Hundreds of hits... Just passing them out to the crowd." They talk about The Grateful Dead and Owsley, "A very generous man." Acid was for everyone, and would change the world. They believed that once everyone took Acid, the world would change.
O'Donnell: "And it was cheap. 250 micrograms for $5!" But at first he had a hard time finding it. He tried a Cal undergrad in Molecular Chemistry. The guy interviewed him and decided he "wasn't mature enough." A college student was telling him he wasn't ready. Months later, he tells us, he did find some.
"We also have a joint in the Smithsonian." Or they tried to get one in. O'Donnell said he rolled a fat one, and mailed it to The Bureau of Standards and Measures. He wanted it to be accepted as the standard for all joints!
Selvin asks for another show of hands. "Who took Acid?" Three quarters of the crowd raise a hand! There is much hilarity, some whoops and spontaneous applause. I wondered how often people admit drug use in public today? Even drug use from years ago.
"How many of you are on Acid right now?" There is a chuckle from the crowd, but no one raises their hand to admit this. "How many of you are on antacid right now?"
The numbers are beyond frightening now. I had attended the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1997. Stories of Hippies and the Summer of Love seemed ancient then. Now it's the Fortieth Anniversary of The Summer of Love. We went to Kanbar Hall in the San Francisco Jewish Community Center for "The Gathering of the Tribes and Summer of Love" with Joel Selvin. It was Tuesday night, January 9. The event was presented by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society.
It was billed as a panel discussion. With the speakers involved, this promised to be more than the usual discussion of the Sixties. It was one of a monthly series of lectures by the San Francisco Historical Society. The ad encouraged Sixties garb. "Tie dye tee shirt and '60s attire encouraged." I noticed a few older couples. They had to be regulars at these lectures. The suits, ties and more formal dress gave them away. They must come to every lecture, I thought. A couple looked surprised to see the place full of Hippies.
Most of the crowd were the now typical group of aging Hippies, or whatever you want to call them. There would be discussion later about what exactly a Hippie was. Many in the crowd looked really old. There were a lot of tie dye tee shirts. My wife, Kathy looked around and said this crowd REALLY looked old. No, this is normal now. The generation that had said not to trust anyone over thirty was now dealing with the dividing line between middle age and old age.
They served refreshments in the hall in front of the auditorium. Soft drinks and juice. There was a well dressed older lady ahead of me. She looked like a regular. "What? No wine tonight?" she asked. The guy behind me quickly spoke up, "No, but we've got plenty of acid!" He had a gray pony tail, and a gleam in his eye. This is a great start, I thought. While we waited he told me about a friend's wake. Someone had mixed LSD in the potato salad. "Some people had a horrible experience." We both agreed that dosing the potato salad wasn't cool. I remembered the stories from back then. If you didn't want to be tripping, don't eat or drink anything at the party, they used to say. I got a can of Coke.
Home movies of the Be-In were playing on a screen as we walked in. It was definitely Golden Gate Park. The old home movie footage was silent. It made the people on-screen look frozen in time. People were dancing with beaming faces. There were short, jerky shots of the stage. Sixties music played lightly in the auditorium. Most of the songs were by Janis and Big Brother.
The place was filling up. It was a big auditorium. I'd guess 600 had come. There were a few remarks by the people from the San Francisco Historical Society. They were obviously pleased by the turnout. We were told about the plans to make the empty Mint building in downtown a museum of San Francisco History. Typical San Francisco. It was a great idea, but it should have been done long ago. Wisely they decided to "talk about it more next time."
Just about every seat is taken. Latecomers are ushered in. Many look surprised that so many showed up. One guy was in the spirit of things. As he walked the aisle looking for a seat he gave the old conspiratorial offer: "Weed... acid... speed." The old pusher mantra.
The show started with a disembodied voice, who I think was Selvin, reading the short version, a quick synopsis of the history of the Sixties. The huge changes the decade brought us. Yes, it was a wild and crazy time of sweeping, turbulent social and political change. There was more of a local angle. In the early Sixties, the Haight neighborhood didn't seem like the place that would foster social change or a cultural revolution. It had been a blue collar Irish neighborhood. But, it was a place where college students could rent a room in a Victorian building for $20 a month. A lot of San Francisco State students lived in the Haight, and spread the word.
The Shapiros were the couple who had brought the home movie footage. They were introduced. They stood, turned around and gave the crowd a friendly wave. With long gray hair, they really looked like Hippie grandparents.
There were short introductions of our speakers, and their counterculture credentials. There was a bit of confusion after the introductions and our announcer from the Historical Society had to go backstage and bring the speakers onstage. Maybe no one wanted to be sitting out there alone.
There were five people sitting onstage around a coffee table. It's a bit of a cliche, but they really did look like a group of college professors, with the possible exception of David Getz. He looked like more of a hipster, with a tee shirt and black beret.
Peder Jones sat at the far left. ("This is not a typo. His name is spelled P E D E R," the program told us.") He had been an artist and now runs "a firm that writes educational materials for book, software and Internet publishers." He's tall and rangy. Despite his jeans and sandals, he has the look of a mountain man, an American pioneer. He looked like he must have been a wild man back in those days.
Jim O'Donnell was a student at Berkeley when the Free Speech Movement started. He looks like the oldest on the panel. He's tall, balding in front, and wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. He was studying to be an engineer, but found the political scene in Berkeley distracting. "We had the Free Speech Movement. We had the Filthy Speech Movement." So he moved to San Francisco and wound up living a block away from Haight Street just as things started to happen. "I managed to make my way to Golden Gate Park from there. It seemed like a long journey back then." He eventually became an editor and publisher.
Marilyn Lucas is involved with San Francisco History, especially the Rock Poster Society. She grew up in San Francisco and was a Galileo High School Student. "A long time resident and part of the North Beach scene."
David Getz gave up teaching art to become the drummer for Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The moderator is Joel Selvin, who is the San Francisco Chronicle's Senior Rock Reporter. He's gray and balding. I have to admit to a bit of jealousy. This guy has seen and heard a lot of Rock History. He did a great job as a moderator and showed a sharp sense of humor. The speakers didn't need much prodding, but there were times when this conversation could have wandered anywhere.
During the evening, Selvin tried to guide the discussion with three questions. 1. How did you get to, and why did you go to The Be-In? 2. What effect did the Sixties have on you? Or, what did the Sixties do to you? 3. Did the counter culture and events of the Sixties make any difference?
Selvin asks each speaker how they found out about the Be-In and why they went. Peder Jones says he was in Santa Cruz and it was a great, sunny day. If it had been raining, he probably wouldn't have gone.
O'Donnell says he went to see the writers. "Because that's what I wanted to be." Ginsberg, Snyder, McClure and others were there. O'Donnell reminds us that we forget how bad the Fifties were, especially if you were "in any way non-conformist." "Remember The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit?"
Several speakers comment on the discovery that there were a lot of people out there who were at least nonconformist, if not more. It was the first mass gathering of the freaks.
O' Donnell says the idea for the Be-In might have started in L.A. There were plans for thousands to get together for a smoke-in. "So nobody could get busted." Somehow the idea drifted North. I might be missing the gist of some of the speakers, especially O'Donnell. He's witty and sarcastic with a subtle sense of humor.
Getz talks a bit about the scene in Los Angeles. After a gig there one night, he wound up stranded and had to carry his drum set slung over his shoulder. He was with Page Browning, who was later a Merry Prankster. "I think he's dead now." Browning used to dress in Medieval garb, with long flowing robes and feathered hats. He usually looked like someone from the Renaissance Faire. Getz said they walked around all night, fueled by acid. They stopped at a coffee shop. The regulars in L.A. didn't bat an eye at what would have been an outlandish scene anywhere else in the country at that time. Getz said that maybe they were used to such strange scenes from all the movie and show business people there.
It was an amazing time. O'Donnell learned that, "My wife had joined something called the League for Eternal Freedom. She went from an academic to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Unfortunately, not in that order."
He mentioned that today was an auspicious date. (Or did he mean 1/14, the actual date of the Be-In?) It was the birthday of Elvis and Richard Nixon (Peder Jones does a quick Nixon imitation, "I am not a crook!") It's also Janis Joplin's birthday. "No!" Getz says quickly. Today is not Janis' birthday.
Selvin and Getz admit they weren't at the Be-In. Selvin says that "believe it or not" those in the political scene in Berkeley didn't consider San Francisco political enough. "There wasn't any action." So, they blew off going across the Bay to the Be-In. He had already dropped out of high school, "There was too much going on," and he spent most of his time "across the street" from Berkeley High School, at the University. "Where something was happening every day."
Getz says that the band Big Brother was moving that weekend from Lagunitas, and they had a gig in L.A. I got the impression both had already dealt with answering questions about missing this seminal event, but they still had to admit once in a while during the night that "I wasn't there." Getz tells us that for years people told him how great the band sounded that day. People insist they heard Big Brother that day. "But, we weren't there." Then, reminiscent of the line "If you remember the Sixties, you weren't there!" he says, "Maybe we were there."
Marilyn Lucas knew she would be at the Be-In. "If you weren't there, you're square!" She's the only female onstage, and at times takes a back seat in the conversation. She talks a little about being exposed to the Beat scene on North Beach's Grant Street. She tells us about how magical and special the whole day was. She's wearing the same necklace she wore to the Be-In that day.
Lucas talks about Lenore Kandel reading from 'The Love Book' at The Be-In. Kandel had been arrested and prosecuted for writing 'The Love Book.' The moral arbiters of the time had deemed it too erotic. The San Francisco Police Department was offended, and Kandel and her publisher were arrested. A couple of years ago Lucas saw 'The Love Book' in a display case at the San Francisco Public Library. It was being shown as an example of great poetry written in San Francisco. Seeing changes and acceptance like this are great, but it is a reminder of how divisive and hostile things had once been.
Getz talks about being an art student in San Francisco during the very early Sixties, "and all that scene." He went to Europe for a year. While there he kept getting letters from friends telling him that something extraordinary was happening in San Francisco.
After he returned, he wound up becoming the drummer for the up and coming band Big Brother and the Holding Company. At one point, he had to choose between the Art and Rock worlds. It actually was a tough decision. He had been making a living at Art, and enjoying the scene. Suddenly he's in a hot rock and roll band. You could feel a SURGE of energy at the time, he tells us. People in the crowd groan. (I wasn't aware at the time of Bush's new Iraq strategy, a "Surge" of new troops, which had been announced that day.)
Selvin calls for a show of hands. "How many here were Hippies?" The auditorium is full. At least two thirds raise their hands. "Who was at the Be-In?" I'll assume people are honest about this, but the result is amazing. About half the crowd raise their hands. People look around for a minute, and then there is spontaneous applause. It was impressive. Heck, I was just starting high school a world away in Chicago when all this was going on.
The ad had read: "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are at the core of a discussion by a panel." The Sixties counterculture was about rebellion, art and music, but it was time to talk about "the elephant in the room" LSD. It was one of the more interesting conversations on Acid that I've heard in a while.
The legacy of the Sixties is marred by drugs and all the problems they brought. Selvin: There had been a movement before, but during the Sixties the big difference was drugs, especially LSD. The panelists talk about how positive it was in the beginning. "Believe it or not." It seems naive now, but Acid was The Gateway to higher consciousness. Getz says, "We really were pioneers."
Acid was still legal, but there were some who said only "qualified" people should be doing it. This changed in the Haight. Like everything else, it was meant to be shared. Selvin says Marty Balin told him about handing out "handfuls" of it at shows... "Hundreds of hits... Just passing them out to the crowd." They talk about The Grateful Dead and Owsley, "A very generous man." Acid was for everyone, and would change the world. They believed that once everyone took Acid, the world would change.
O'Donnell: "And it was cheap. 250 micrograms for $5!" But at first he had a hard time finding it. He tried a Cal undergrad in Molecular Chemistry. The guy interviewed him and decided he "wasn't mature enough." A college student was telling him he wasn't ready. Months later, he tells us, he did find some.
"We also have a joint in the Smithsonian." Or they tried to get one in. O'Donnell said he rolled a fat one, and mailed it to The Bureau of Standards and Measures. He wanted it to be accepted as the standard for all joints!
Selvin asks for another show of hands. "Who took Acid?" Three quarters of the crowd raise a hand! There is much hilarity, some whoops and spontaneous applause. I wondered how often people admit drug use in public today? Even drug use from years ago.
"How many of you are on Acid right now?" There is a chuckle from the crowd, but no one raises their hand to admit this. "How many of you are on antacid right now?"