Taj Mahal...Summer Of Love 40th

Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

A great version of "Checkin' Up On My Baby"

Almost like being there, and totally mayhem-free!

Peter Max 2007

Here is a close-up of the banner on stage, taken by my Aiko brother's wonder-son. The performer is Essra Mohawk, who had the good fortune to play music with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in the late 1960's.

In My Life...

Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park~ September 2nd, 2007
We prefer the nosebleed seats these days. Less mayhem occurs back here. The backdrop on stage was done by Peter Max... my brother has some nice close-ups. (hint hint)



My brother and my man, sipping their chilled Veuve Clicquot. We were stylin'! I'll be writing more about the experience later this week, as time allows.


Aiko: The next generation. My older daughter and my Aiko bro's only son, enjoying dim sum in the not-so-dim-sun. That is either a Chinese long bean or a pea pod between her chopsticks.


These nutty freaks were selling flowers out of a shopping cart, and here you see them dragging that cart through the crowd, to the other side of the meadow. Notice their porta-potty hanging off the front of the cart. Ready for anything!


Later, that same week... I took an afternoon off and went on a long walk up Big River with my love. It was the last of a series of very warm days on the coast.



Remains of a tree along Big River.



The deadly beauty of "ripe" poison oak.


Here is the place I was this weekend, kid-sitting.


Outside the kitchen door, in the early morning dampness.


Another view of their lovely place from the yard.


The kid I looked after and his pal, ping-ponging in the foggy dew.



Weekend Bonus! I got to meet Joe Spado for a cup of coffee. We talked for about an hour, and it felt like we were old friends. Aaarghhh... Peace, matey!


When I returned to my duties at the house, my daughter was playing the piano. It sounded terrific.

The sun was shining out in the yard, so I stretched-out in the hammock and her sweet piano music filled the air.






... More to share-later.

Sex in the Sixties

Mt.Tam in the 60's

A few things... we are scheduled to drive to the city again this weekend, for the Summer of Love concert in Golden Gate Park. It coincides with the three-day closure of the Bay Bridge. In both directions. Not since the Loma Prieta earthquake has this occurred. The reason for the closure has to do with the massive bridge overhaul, which was brought on by the aforementioned quake.( Which was now almost 20 years ago.) The project is over-budget by millions, and years behind schedule. No matter what, this will NOT be pretty. Why am I so certain and cynical? Because the bay area already deals with never-ending gridlock on the freeways. This will only add to the insanity that is a part of living there. Or any metropolis, really. It's just that people keep flocking here, to this state. In droves. No matter the cost-of-living. Why? They want their California dream, dammit! It's going to be ugly, I just know it. So... I am thinking about this trip south in a more logistical manner than usual. The time that we travel is key. I am thinking early morning on Sunday. Coming home to the coast that night, later. Three hours of drive-time each way, at least. The fact is, it will be a magical weekend in the park. Older daughter and I are scheduled to work backstage for a bit, helping to prepare food that will be served to the performers. The people-watching will be splendid! AikoJim and his son will be there. Good times are just around the bend.

Posting the above photo got me thinking. (Get your minds out of the gutter!) That picture was taken in the sixties. So those "kids" are about sixty now, right? Why is it so hard to comprehend that "seniors" (57 years and up) enjoy healthy sex lives? Look at how some of those old timers used to live---like in this photo, for example. Of course they enjoy sex. Why-the-hell- not? I guess the recent study about these findings doesn't gross me out. In fact, I find it heartening, to know that people continue to feel passionate as they age. Nothing wrong with love-forty years ago or present-day. (Except in our screwy, hung-up western culture, of course!)

Love Is The Drug

SUMMER OF LOVE~40TH ANNIVERSARY

CONFIRMED ACTS (as of 5/23/07) INCLUDE:

Ray Manzarek (the Doors), Country Joe McDonald (Country Joe and the Fish), Canned Heat, Michael McClure (Beat poet), New Riders of the Purple Sage, Nick Gravenites, David Laflamme (It's a Beautiful Day), Alameda All Stars (Gregg Allman), Merl Saunders, Terry Haggarty (Sons of Champlin), Dan Hicks, The Charlatans, Essra Mohawk (Mothers of Invention), Barry Melton, Jim Post (Friend and Lover, Siegel-Schwall Blues Band),
Paul "Lobster" Wells , Chief Sunny Ray, Fishbone, Iroquois Tribe, Dakota Tribe, Seminole Tribe, Emit Powell and the Gospel Elites.

Additional acts are still confirming.

Grace Remembers

GRACE SLICK, painter who exhibits her portraits of other '60s rock stars all over the country, now living in Malibu. THEN: With her songs "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" riding the top of the charts, the lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane was the uncrowned queen of the Summer of Love.

I was with Jefferson Airplane, newly. We were in a period -- I think not only me but a whole bunch of people -- of hope. Meaning what we had in mind we actually sort of envisioning happening within a fairly short period of time because we were very young and naïve. We forgot that the human being is a new species, one of the newest on the planet, and that our fear system, which is basically Cro-Magnon, is not in sync with this big brain. We thought enough information could change people's mind. If they sat around and considered it and weighed it, they'd see what was going on was probably not appropriate. And it's the same thing as anybody trying to do that today. Thinking that if you sending more troops into Iraq, the Middle East is going to change. They have been fighting for five thousands years over the same thing and they're going to continue to do that whether we're there or not. Doesn't matter. At the time, though, we thought that enough information either through the music or the newspapers and media one way or another, things would start to clear up a little bit. And some of it did. There is information on television that you could never say or do before. Barack Obama is running for president with 21 million dollars or whatever it is. Hilary Clinton is running for president. So some things have changed, yeah. But the basic desires of men to kill each other haven't changed at all. It's just stupid.

I was living in San Francisco somewhere. I had a little cottage. It was the carriage keeper's cottage on Franklin. There is a big Victorian on the corner and next to it was a little carriage keeper's cottage. It was really neat. I went in there and scooped it up. I think it was the first time I'd lived alone. I'd always been with some boyfriend or married. I should have noticed then that I like living alone. I kept trying to make relationships work. Some people are good at it and I'm just not. My deal is that I pay more attention to whatever job I have than the relationships I have. Now if I had considered my job to be a wife and mother, then I would have been pretty good at it. But I didn't consider it a job. I thought it was like brushing your teeth - it's not fun, it's just something you do to keep your teeth from falling out.

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music. Let's say Jorma got the music and he has some of the lyrics. He used to do that to me. He'd put the music down on tape and say here's the music.

We were in the studio about six months with "After Bathing At Baxter's," living in a place in LA the Beatles had formerly rented. RCA was paying for it. They were paying for studio time. They were paying for everything. So it was fantastic. Suits are paying and we're having a good time. I liked that a lot.

I never thought of myself as being this star, whatever that stuff means. So it was more amusing to me than anything else. That people would call you artist on a contract, that would amuse me. Artist, what do you mean? I'm a fuck-off, not an artist. 'Cause a lot of the guys are really good musicians and I'm not. I went to see Jefferson Airplane play and I said that looks like a lot more fun than I'm having being a model for Magnin's. Wow, that's much better. I knew I could sort of sing, because my mother was a singer. But it just looked like a lot more fun than what I was doing. Them calling me an artist - no I'm not Pablo Casals here - this is rock and roll.

It amused me that people were taking apart what we'd written as if it had meant anything. The fact that our generation wanted a number of thing to happen or not happen as the case my be with social political stuff, we thought it would. Not because of us but because in particular but because of the generation's cry for it. And eventually it did. They did stop the Vietnam War, but it did take some time.

I think it's looking at the paradigm and saying... There's the adage if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, it was broke and we wanted to fix it. We were looking at what is going on and what needs to be adjusted. I do the same thing with the art. I'll be going along and painting some stuff and then I put it on the easel. . Then I just sit in a chair and look at it. Does that need a little help over there with the red? Is that arm the right shape? The forearm's too long for the legs - it's out of proportion. It's like that. You just look at what's going on and what can be done to make it better to assist people. It's a leftist position and I don't know any myself Republican musicians. Now I'm sure there are some. But I personally don't know any. It was a change from a sort of Republican attitude - which I would like to do again - from a stiff, war-like attitude. We elected, God bless him, Eisenhower as president. Oh boy, a warrior. Let's have more warriors. No, let's not. It was a push for everybody in the sense, not a push for white people. On the Statue of Liberty - bring me your poor and your miserable and your unfunny and whatever - that should apply. Why should it just apply to white people? Those were the questions we were asking.

We don't have a democracy right now. It's a monarchy. There's nothing about it that's a democracy. So we're in worse shape now than we were and the stuff we were trying to change in the '60s. Look at it. Look at it from every standpoint and we're in worse shape now with the possible exception of black people making headway. And God bless 'em, it's about fucking time.

Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert. Those are the guys I look at who are telling me pretty much the truth. And they throw humor into it which makes it much more interesting to listen to. The comedians - as did Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, people like that, Richard Pryor - you listen to comedians they're probably going to be telling you the truth, with humor thrown in. Now if I listen to them, then I'll probably know how to approach it. Wolf Blitzer will ask questions, but he won't get all up in that - know what I mean?

Anybody who's telling me what their truth is - cause the truth jumps all over the map -don't be afraid to tell the truth. I think from the '60s, a lot of that is now happening. Even South Park. They're going to hammer somebody for their stupid moves. Britney Spears, Hillary Clinton or whoever.

(The Summer of Love meant) a great deal of freedom to be myself. Both my parents, which is really odd because they were both Republicans, but they were very lenient. A lot of parents will say well, we're saving up, the little lady is pregnant. We got sonar or whatever and we found out it's a boy and we want our son to go to Princeton. Maybe he doesn't want to go to Princeton. You don't even know what he wants to do yet. He's not even out of the stomach. Parents impose all this stuff on their kids. It would be better to wait and see who this person is. How does this person want to deal with stuff. What kind of talents does this person have. Maybe he's going to be really good at landscaping but he doesn't want to be a doctor or a lawyer. I've heard a lot of guys say I became a lawyer because my father had a firm. They spent 25 years, wasted their lives, and they wanted to be a landscaper. You know what I mean? My parents were very open about what kind of talent I had. They never pushed me to become an accountant because they knew that would be just absolutely ridiculous. So they were encouraging in what I am able to do with some success. I got that encouragement from both my parents and from the ethic - I'm not sure that's the right word - the '60s ethic which was to be yourself. You want to be Wavy Gravy? Go ahead on. You want to be Jerry Garcia, be a musician? You want to make beaded dresses? Write a left-wing newspaper? Whatever. Whatever you want to do, jump into it. Like Alice in Wonderland jumped into the rabbit hole. You want to find out, jump in. When you get older, it's not what you did that you regret, it's what you didn't do. I didn't screw Jimi Hendrix and Peter O'Toole when they were young and kind of fabulous. I didn't learn to ride a horse. I didn't go to the Middle East. That I should have done. I should have gotten drunk one night - I always had my passport with me in case I felt like going somewhere.

I did pretty much most of the stuff I had in mind. I don't sit around thinking I wasted my life wasting breakfast for old Fred. Uh-uh. Didn't do it.

-- Joel Selvin

As a child, I adored her. She represented strength, beauty, humor, and truth. My feelings haven't changed in the least. I saw a television interview with her about a year ago, and her acerbic wit is still going strong. One memorable thing she said was that she was never into the Grateful Dead, but she always loved Jerry. After this long stretch of time without him around, I think I get what she means. As much as he despised being the focus of that band, The Grateful Dead was all about Jerry. This is not to say that the other members aren't great in their own right... only that Garcia was the touchstone.
Jerry, by Grace

Forty Years?

Summer 1967. My father lived in the lower Haight, on Scott St. I was ten years old and amazed by it all. Too young to actually participate, and yet I have memories of that time. Grown-ups drinking lots of jug wine-burgundy. I remember the day that George Harrison and wife Patty walked through the Haight. The news spread quickly. I was told he was wearing heart-shaped sunglasses.

My most profound memories are musical. When my brother and I arrived for our summer visit at dad's, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had just been released. I played it constantly. Also: Rubber Soul/Beatles, Flowers/Rolling Stones, The very first (self-titled) Grateful Dead album, Surrealistic Pillow/Jefferson Airplane and so much more. I would sit in the sunny front room in the big armchair and play my dad's records. A lot. And practice my dance moves, when nobody was watching. (Read: my younger, annoying brother.)

I've talked about memories of Hippie Hill... I loved going to the Psychedelic Shop, and looking at every single thing in the store. Sometimes my dad's hippie friends would come over. That's where the jug wine comes in. Also that summer, my older stepsister told me what "fuck" meant. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it wasn't just a word dad used when he got mad at other drivers! I found that information so important, I went back home to my mom later that summer and told all of my neighborhood friends about that word and what it meant. My mom got lots of phone calls from parents-of-friends soon after that.

Just a few kid memories of the Summer of Love, almost forty years later.