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Uploaded on Oct 13, 2008 If you're going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you're going to San Francisco You're gonna meet some gentle people there For those who come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there In the streets of San Francisco Gentle people with flowers in their hair All across the nation such a strange vibration People in motion There's a whole generation with a new explanation People in motion people in motion For those who come to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there If you come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there Category Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair | Take To The Highway Take To The Highway There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway… Search Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair Posted on by Suzanne In the days of my youth, cross-country roadtrips with my family typically coincided with my Dad having just bought a new car. Dad was a stylish man and always preferred the Chevrolet Impala.

My first trip to California at four years old was in a 1957 golden Chevy Impala with the dramatic, sweeping “bat wings” on the tail. My second trip would be in the more conservative 1966 marina-blue Impala Sedan. It was the summer of 1967, and not unlike today, the headlines were filled with stories of racial tension and talk of revolution. Though most of the killing with assault rifles was taking place on the other side of the planet. Here on our shores, it was “The Summer of Love.” Pier One — The Embarcadero This place is called “Hard Water.” That entire back wall is covered with nothing but whiskey. They offer flights which go up as high as $250. The “Painted Ladies,” Victorian row houses built between 1892 and 1895. Things were rapidly changing on the music scene, and American Bandstand was no longer cool. “Flower Power” ruled as the counter-culture theme. There was a new FM radio station in town, and music was going “underground.” Songs were now longer, with often times entire album sides being featured on the radio.

Most carried a political message, and posed forbidden concepts like “heavy,” “mind-bending,” and “psychedelic.” Make love, not war. San Francisco had become the “music Mecca” as new bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane were all converging on a previously unknown street corner just blocks from Golden Gate Park….Haight Ashbury. “Hippies” were flocking to the area, and I was a twelve year old “hippie wannabe.” I had my first sourdough in San Francisco. It’s as good as I remembered. See those big pipes on the side of that building? They are venting out the smell of hot baking sourdough on to the main street. Marketing at its best. I begged my parents to take me to San Francisco on our summer road trip. If I couldn’t be a hippie, then please at least let me see some. Finally, they relented. Now, all I needed was some flowers for my hair… Although I have been to San Francisco many times since then, I haven’t revisited those places from that summer of 1967. It is my intent to do so with this visit.

I want to experience all the same things we did on that trip…the tastes, the sights, the smells, and most of all, the emotions. We all have memories of things that unrightfully terrified us as kids, and one of mine is standing on the “running board” of the Powell-Market Street Cable Car, hanging on to the pole with everything I had in me. The car was packed, and we could not get a seat so we had to stand. I remember the thoughts going through my head, knowing the next turn ahead was going to be “it.” I was going to go flying off into the street as the cable car sped down the hill with my family, never to be seen again! At the turn-around point, the car must be pushed out and back over that V-shaped track on the left to reverse directions. Photos don’t adequately show the steepness of these hills! This is how close the cars come when two cars meet. I would be afraid someone might yank me off! I must still have some fear about this early cable car ride, as I can’t bring myself to stand on the running board again. Instead, I take a spot in the vestibule at the back.

Only two riders are allowed to stand there, and my timing is good for one of those spots….if you call waiting in line for 45 minutes “good!” I am glad to see my childhood fears were warranted. It’s a wild ride up and down those steep hills, that damned bell clanging the warning of imminent doom of being flung out into the oncoming traffic with every 90 degree turn! Lombard Street, the “crookedist” street in the world. More beautifully landscaped than I remembered. I also revisit Lombard Street, the “crookedist street in the world,” to see if it was as “extreme” as I remembered as a twelve year old. I have a passion for hydrangeas in my adult life, so the street is even more beautiful than I remembered. Though I think going down it in a 1966 Impala “land yacht” made it seem a lot more treacherous than the “mini” cars of today. But my number one nostalgic revisit still awaits.

I hop on the city bus signed “Lower Haight” bound for that infamous corner of Haight Ashbury, curious to see what I will find there, 49 years after “The Summer of Love.” I signal for a stop at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury and laugh out loud as I step off the bus. There on the corner is a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream shop. How poignant that just half a block from the famed “Grateful Dead House” at 710 Ashbury is all the “Cherry Garcia” ice cream one could eat. Burger building commemorates “The Summer of Love,” 1967. The famous corner of Haight Ashbury. Ben and Jerry now occupy the opposite corner. There are lots of “head shops” (smoking paraphernalia) and burger joints to satisfy the “munchies,” but my favorite shop is Amoeba Music, the independently owned music store on Haight Street occupying a former bowling alley. It’s the largest music store I have ever seen in my life! They claim more than 100,000 CDs, vinyl records, and cassette tapes. The walls are papered with old concert posters. Dylan. Janis.

Monterey Pop, and Fillmore gigs too numerous to name. As I wander the aisles in awe, I realize my entire life of music can be found here in this one 20,000 sq ft store. I make all the stops on “the walking tour of the stars.” I see buildings that were once inhabited by my music idols, now multi-million dollar renovated Victorian homes on the National Historic Register. This dark gray house in the center is the “Grateful Dead House,” 710 Ashbury St, where the Grateful Dead band members lived. 635 Ashbury, an 8,000 sq ft multi-family home where Janis Joplin lived. After a wander through Golden Gate Park (now filled with vagabonds of a different sort,) I make one last stop in the Haight. I pull up a bar stool in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop, overlooking that famous intersection. I reminisce back to “The Summer of Love” when I sat there in my parents 1966 Impala wearing a wreath of golden yellow and orange marigolds in my hair. It’s hot, and the windows are rolled down.

As we wait for the light to change, a group of Hells Angels rolls up in the lane next to us, gunning their engines. One of them looks over at my Mom, quite a “looker” in her day wearing her teased-up hair and Foster Grants. He looks over and says, “Hey, Mama! How ‘bout a ride?” And all at once, I am crushed that he would choose my MOTHER over a flower-adorned budding young hippie such as myself! Amoeba Music occupies an old bowling alley. Every record I ever owned can be found in this 20,000 sq ft music store. This is only half. The other side is the same size. I sit there on that barstool, eating my Cherry Garcia ice cream, and ponder how much music has shaped my life. Those “underground” magazines, the first and only FM radio station KFAD, and concerts like Woodstock and Monterey Pop are ingrained in the fabric of my life. Though a lot has changed, not much has changed.

In my mind, I am still that budding young hippie, protesting the war, advocating for peace, and listening to Jimi and Janis on my headphones while longing for that 1967 Summer of Love. Ben and Jerrys “Cherry Garcia” view Rudimentary shrine to Janis Joplin built around a light pole. But now it’s time to get out of San Francisco, and I have a decision to make. Will I brave the downtown traffic to satisfy my desire to drive the Winnie across the Golden Gate Bridge? It’s Friday morning after POTUS Obama spent the night in downtown San Francisco last night. I go online to whitehouse.gov to check his schedule, and learn he is leaving early for San Jose. The Gay Pride weekend is sure to ramp up by early afternoon. I figure I’ve got one small window of opportunity around 10:30am, just after the morning commute and before the weekend festivities begin. So I decide to make a break for it.

To quote the famous comic character Oat Willie from the head shop on 29th and Guadalupe in Austin, I say, “Onward: through the fog!” It’s a beautiful blue sky day as I drive the Hwy 1 ramp to the bridge. But see that cloud on the horizon? That’s the Golden Gate Bridge! ] I am grateful for my previous days bike ride across the bridge when it was so clear! Advection fog forms when warm moist air of land moves over cold upwelling of water. At least I am not tempted to take my eyes off the road! “If you’re going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you’re going to San Francisco You’re gonna meet some gentle people there For those who come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there In the streets of San Francisco Gentle people with flowers in their hair All across the nation Flowers In Your Hair: San Francisco's Rich Music History – IHG Travel Blog Photo by Tony Fischer “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” This line comes from Scott McKenzie’s 1967 hit single “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)”.

It was the anthem of the summer known as the “Summer of Love” in 1967, and the headquarters of that time period were in San Francisco. But the 1960s isn’t the only time of musical influence for this California city. San Francisco is rich with music history. Jazz, punk and rock music all have deep roots in the city. You may know famous San Francisco artists like the Grateful Dead and equally famous residents like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. But, other popular bands got their start in the city by the bay as well. Journey, Green Day, and even MC Hammer began here. Songs are written about it, famous artists were born here, well-known bands got their music careers off and going here, and some of SF’s musical spots left a lasting effect on the music industry. The Venues Begin your trip back in time of San Francisco’s music history at The Fillmore . This entertainment district, also seen as the heart and soul of the city, first began more than 100 years ago. Although it’s seen many changes since its creation, it’s always been known as an influential music and entertainment district.

Many theaters, dance halls, nightclubs and music venues have resided or still reside here and have drawn in various singers and other musical acts throughout its time. The famous promoter Bill Graham got his start in concert promotion in 1965 for a benefit at a dance hall at The Fillmore. In 1933, Jack’s Tavern was opened, and shortly after Club Alabam and the Town Club joined with Jack’s where a new era of African American music took off and the Fillmore jazz scene was started. But, The Fillmore truly became the heart of psychedelic rock and counterculture in the 1960s. Bands like the Grateful Dead, The Steve Miller Band, Santana, The Who, The Doors, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, just to name a few. The venue also became synonymous with the psychedelic music posters of the 1960s, as pictured below. Photo by Dianne Yee But The Fillmore did not shy away from non-rock acts, with artists like Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding all performing there. Today, The Fillmore is still a musical hot spot in the city.

Summer of Love Arguably the most well-known location during the Summer of Love was the Haight-Ashbury district. Its namesake is attributed to the social phenomenon of the gathering of nearly 100,000 hippies that took place during the summer of 1967. During this year, it was the center for hippies, drugs, creative expression and freedom. The “Summer of Love” also thrust out a new kind of music to the world known as acid rock and helped start the careers of the band the Grateful Dead and singer-songwriter Janice Joplin. Photo by Frank Kovalchek Taking your own musical tour might also include the likes of the MatrixFillmore , the first folk nightclub where Jefferson Airplane debuted in 1965; the house where Jefferson Airplane once lived, rehearsed and partied; and the house where members of the Grateful Dead lived during the Summer of Love. Jazz Jazz lovers should stroll through North Beach. In the 1950s, this area was the bohemian area of San Francisco since it’s where the members of the Beat Generation hung out.

They spent their time sipping on espressos and listening to the soulful sounds of jazz music. Photo by debaird™ The counterculture revolution in the city in the 1960s could not have occurred without the Beat Generation paving the road in the previous decade. Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, and Kirby Doyle formed the core of Beat Generation idealists. Punk and Rock The free love of the 1960s gave way to something a bit more sinister in the following decades. In the 1970s, San Francisco saw the emergence of Punk music. Leading the way of this genres presence was famous band the Dead Kennedys. Moving on into the 1980s and 1990s, bands like Metallica settled in San Francisco. The Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind also began here. Even the go-to source for Rock and Roll journalism, Rolling Stone magazine, began in San Francisco before moving to New York City. With endless history, the City by the Bay calls to everyone who appreciates music. A simple visit to this beautiful city will make you feel like a rock star waiting to play a show.

So, put some flowers in your hair and find hotels in San Francisco where you can stay like a rock star. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair | La Tour Abolie Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair Take a line from a song that you love or connect with. Turn that line into the title of your post. Now you’re going to laugh at me. But when I heard that song coming over the radio in Mum’s kitchen in 1967 – can it really have been that long ago – I was transfixed. That was what I wanted. That was what I had to have. I had to be in San Francisco. I had to be lean and flower-clad. I had to have a long skirt and dusty sandals, and beads. And bells. According to Scott McKenzie, people were in motion, all across the nation. They were on their way to San Francisco, and that became my Garden of Eden. Even now, listening to that song, I cry. Not always, mind you. Sometimes I just think – that was a bit cheesy. And now it’s so dated. Whoever talks of love-ins now?

Whoever would trouble to prance around in a field waving daisies, or paint flowers on a mini? Would I really have dropped acid, ripped off my cheesecloth shirt and swayed around to psychedelic music? No. I was never a hippie. I was schoolgirl. By the time I became a student, hippies had faded like the flowers they wore in their hair. They were a joke. And have remained one. Who wants to be called an ageing hippie? The Beatles were the height of my musical experience. I wouldn’t have known the name of one underground group. I wore my school uniform most of the time. My hair was cut in a practical helmet shape, at my Mum’s insistence. I had spots and no social skills. I was aware that San Francisco was somewhere in America but not where in America. I had never flown in an aeroplane. I had no money for the fare. A train trip to Devon to visit my aunt and uncle was the furthest I had ever been on my own, and that totally stressed me out. I was too young. I was afraid. But yet I yearned for San Francisco, which I envisaged as 0ne big field of flowers.

Maybe a tent or two. A few dusty sidewalks with tangle-bearded, blissed-out people lolloping about on them. Prior to that I had thought London was the answer. London was where I would go, as soon as I was able. I might be a misfit in suburbia but in London I would find People Like Me. It took me many, many years to realise that People Like Me are relatively few and far between, and scattered randomly throughout the country and across the globe. There would have been no comforting concentration of kindred spirits in the capital city. Recently, I was reading about the end of life. I know – bit of a jump. Sorry. I read this fascinating thing – that when they ‘begin their dying’ old people often talk of going on a journey. They might ask whether their flight is booked, or request railway schedules or tide-tables. They might ask when the taxi is coming to collect them, or say they are soon going on holiday, or planning to meet up with a (long dead) loved one. Strangely, the planned journey is always to some other place on this earth – no flying up to meet the angels.

This made me sad, but then I thought – how wonderful that there is that defence mechanism, so that they aren’t consumed with fear. And who knows, maybe it’s true in some mystical, metaphysical way: a kind of psychic metaphor. And that lead me to think about that other journey – the one young people feel compelled to make. It’s just as much of a draw – the journey outward into the world – as that journey homeward, back to the source, becomes. I longed for San Francisco but did nothing about it. Bolder souls go on gap years or back-pack to remote parts of the world in search of something. I suspect they never find the actual something: the journey is the something, that going out, that longing for a Lost Eden. On the news recently was a young British woman who took her toddler to Syria, but returned a few months later. She is now serving a six year jail sentence and her child, presumably, will see very little of her. And then I wondered whether this longing for the Earthly Paradise, or Eden, might not be the explanation for so many young people being drawn to join terrorist armies. Maybe Syria – or some equivalent war zone – has become their Lost Eden.

They yearn for it with a young person’s passion, although the reality bears no more resemblance to Eden than San Francisco would have done, had I had the nerve or the means to go there. We can all have dream places, and we can long for them so much that we go off in search of them. Maybe we are not so different after all. We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. (Joni Mitchell) San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie Songfacts John Phillips from The Mamas And The Papas wrote this as the unofficial anthem for the Monterey Pop Festival, which is near San Francisco. Phillips helped organize the festival. This has the longest title of any #1 in UK. John Phillips played guitar on this track and produced it with Lou Adler. The session musicians who played on it were top notch: Joe Osborn on bass, Hal Blaine on drums and Larry Knechtel on keyboards. They were some of the first-call Los Angeles musicians who played on many of Phil Spector's productions. Scott McKenzie wore flowers in his hair when he recorded this song.

McKenzie was in a group called The Journeymen with John Phillips. His only other hit was the follow up to this "Like An Old Time Movie," and by the end of the '60s he'd gone to live in the desert. In the late '80s he co-wrote the Beach Boys #1 single " Kokomo ." >> Suggestion credit: Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for all above This was one of the big Hippie hits during the Summer Of Love in 1967. Many peace activists and folkies wore flowers in their hair. Jimi Hendrix wrote "Little Wing" about the Monterey Pop Festival. San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie in San Francisco, California “ If you're going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you're going to San Francisco You're gonna meet some gentle people there” Send "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)" Ringtone to your Cell This well-known California city has several songs either about the city itself or parts thereof, such as the famous Golden Gate Bridge.

"San Francisco," from the 1936 MGM movie musical of the same name, and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," made famous by Tony Bennett, are two songs which certainly promote the City by the Bay. But the subject of this article features a more recent and certainly popular song sometimes referred to as "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)." Can a song influence people to do certain things? The original recording was by Scott McKenzie. It reached #1 in the UK and Europe and #4 in the United States. Many millions of copies were sold and there is good evidence to support the claim that hordes of young people moved to San Francisco as a result of the lyrics in this song. Thousands arrived in San Francisco in the late '60s, not long after the release of the song in 1967. Then in Prague in 1968, during the local uprising, the song was played at rallies in support of those who campaigned for freedom. Cover versions have been recorded by a wide variety of artists including Led Zeppelin, the Global Deejays, and even the rappers San Quinn and Boo Banga.

Disney plays the song in its California Adventure and movies such as Frantic and Forrest Gump have featured the song. The 101 Strings Orchestra performed it for the film Born on the Fourth of July. In short, it's a hit. The song was hugely popular in the summer of 1967 when hordes of young people arrived in San Francisco. Many who could not find accommodation elsewhere settled in a district of the city known as Haight-Ashbury, or simply The Haight. The area got its name from two major streets which in turn were named after Messrs Haight and Ashbury, prominent citizens of the city in its formative years. So if you want to see the place where the so-called hippie culture or the Beat generation was formed, take a trip down memory lane in this fascinating part of town. Many streets are lined with 19th century multi-storied wooden houses which have become synonymous with the history of the area. When a freeway was proposed to run through The Haight, many locals sold up fearing the value of their property would plummet. But other locals opposed the plans and the freeway was never built. This meant there was plenty of cheap housing for the hippies who arrived at that time.

If you know your popular music of the period, you can visit where famous performers such as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin all lived within The Haight. So where did "flower power" take root? Where did runaway teenagers and the multitude of hippies with their philosophy of pot and free love set up home? Slap bang in the middle of The Haight. And in some ways the area has not changed at all from those heady days of the 1960s. Today The Haight has thriving small businesses, bars and restaurants. In June the Haight-Ashbury Fair stops traffic as sound stages are erected and locals and tourists flood the now famous streets. But if you go be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. San Francisco - Scott McKenzie - YouTube San Francisco - Scott McKenzie Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Jun 16, 2009 "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is a song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written and released in June 1967 to promote the Monterey Pop Festival. McKenzie's song became an instant hit. The lyrics tell the listeners, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair". Due to the difference between the lyrics and the actual title, the title is often quoted as "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)". "San Francisco" reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and was number one in the United Kingdom and most of Europe. The single is purported to have sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

The song is credited with bringing thousands of young people to San Francisco, California during the late 1960s.[citation needed] In Central Europe, young people adopted "San Francisco" as an anthem for freedom, and it was widely played during Czechoslovakia's 1968 Prague Spring uprising against Soviet rule.[citation needed] The song has been featured in several films, including Frantic, The Rock and Forrest Gump (Wikipedia). Category Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair Tuesday Aug 14, 2012 · 7:05 AM PDT 2012/08/14 · 07:05 410 Note: I write about the 60s here and now because no other era is so pertinent to this crucial moment in time. If you ask me, we should learn our history and get off this crazy-assed merry-go-round before somebody puts an eye out.

If you're going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you're going to San Francisco You're gonna meet some gentle people there Scott McKenzie, San Francisco By the time Scott McKenzie's song came out in 1967, I was a committed young hippie. His lifting lyrical opus was a siren call to many in my generation - a majority I would say. We wanted flowers in our hair, not guns in our hands. We wanted to be and be among gentle people. We wanted nothing to do with the killing, the waste and the selfish, plastic, greedy, empty-headed world of consumption-for-the-sake-of-consumption being shoved down our throats. We wanted a love-in. A lot of us either were or wanted to be hippies, but there was no manual, no place you went to sign up. We were all improvising, making it up as we went. The closest thing we had to directions was our music. As the youth rebellion took hold across America, Europe and elsewhere, the music, rock 'n roll, which was always subversive, became ever more so.

Sixties rock went from Twist and Shout and I Want to Hold Your Hand to For What It's Worth, [Four Dead in] Ohio and Revolution. There's something happening here What it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth Coming of age in our time was a matter of awakening to the horror of a wrong-headed society dominated by Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex, Wall Street grifters, The Draft, The War and a Madison Avenue mind-twisting machine devoted to programming mass consumerism, promoting a shallow, know-nothing, denial-based mindset and fostering an environment of don't ask, shut up and get in line, hate those commies, salute the flag, buy a new car and don't ask any fucking questions. Resistance will be met with force. The situation was so extreme then (it's even worse now) that peaceniks became public enemy number one. That should tell us all we need to know about 'the public,' or rather, the ones who manipulate that concept so skillfully, our beloved 1%.

It seems that at any given time, as true in the sixties as it is now, that there is a subset of unusually smart people attempting to steer us in a productive, progressive and sane direction based on science, insight, knowledge, understanding and sound judgment while going virtually ignored when not being viciously attacked by the larger society and its tools of mass deception and distraction. We who were young or came of majority in the 60s woke up to a world run by greedheads who cared nothing for humanity or posterity, who had no respect for our duty to be proper stewards of the planet and who possessed no vision beyond the next quarter's profits and their own personal bank accounts - the inevitable results of which we see today. My generation, while certainly not the first to get wise to these assholes, was surely the noisiest and busiest. We built an entire subculture from scratch based on our opposition to, and rejection of the idiotic, self-destructive status quo with which these geniuses had blessed us. We decided that if we're all committing suicide anyway, we might as well raise a little hell.

(Echoes of Occupy.) It was painfully obvious to the majority of my generation that our society had fallen into the hands of seriously evil bastards. And most of adult society was simply pretending it wasn't happening...much as we see today. We questioned their denial and rejected their hypocrisy, and many of them hated us for it. Conditions aren't that different today. In fact they're worse. White collar conservative flashing down the street, Pointing their plastic finger at me. They're hoping soon my kind will drop and die, But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high, high. Wave on, wave on The Jimi Hendrix Experience, If 6 Was 9 We called ourselves freaks back in the day and we flew our freak flags high. The term hippie quickly became a victim of the Madison Avenue vulture brigade as they swooped in to suck as much money out of the phenomenon as they could. The Diggers (whom I mention with deepest respect and highest regard for my friend, brother and original San Francisco digger, claude ) even threw a funeral for 'Hippie' in 1967. We wouldn't be put in that box with the paisley wrap. Our movement was anti-commercialism.

We were against everything the Madison Avenue vultures stood for. And so we didn't like being called hippies back then. These days I use it simply as a term of convenience. People may not have a remotely accurate idea of what I mean by 'hippie' because of all the conservative cultural propaganda, lies and bullshit, but they sure as hell don't catch my drift when I talk about being a freak. You really had to be there for that. Those of us who were there and who experienced it as participants tend to share the view of Hunter S. Thompson, who saw the time and the experience as something very special. “Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . . There was madness in any direction, at any hour.

If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . . And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream There is no point in trying to say it any better than that, other than to say that it wasn't only San Francisco where these things were happening.

It seemed to take root there and then spread outward in all directions until it covered the earth - until there were hippies, freaks and counterculturals in Patagonia, Switzerland and Timbuktu. Like I said, there were no clear cut rules for being a hippie and the phenomenon was very much a mixed bag: neo-beatniks, cultural revolutionaries, radical dissidents, deadbeat dropouts, flower children, proto-punks. back-to-the-landers, Jesus freaks, enlightened poets, inspired intellectuals, mad scientists, crazy artists, rock 'n rollers, peaceniks, those who were a mix of any two or more of these things, those who were fakin' it (some of whom had badges) and those who were just there for the party. It was, like I say, a mixed bag, a mixed bag of cosmic nuts, any one of which (with few exceptions) could thrill my soul. The one thing they never were was boring. What being a hippie meant to me was, first and foremost, a rejection of the predominant social values up to that time: shut up, do as you're told, fight for Old Glory and don't ask any questions.

I could not see a future for myself in mindless conformity and slavish obedience to authority gone mad. Some people say we were simply conforming to a different standard and there is some truth in that, there is of course nothing new under the sun, but our standard at least celebrated non-conformity, was embarrassed by its own to the extent that it did exist and never demanded it of others as a condition for inclusion. It was okay by us if you preferred your hair short – just ask Hunter S. Thompson. We honored and valued eccentricity. We embraced the different. Hippie-ness or freak-nature was all about attitude. Either you got why the status quo was unacceptable or you didn't. If you rejected the status quo you were with us – provided you weren't rejecting it in favor of something even worse. There were always those who thought the problem was that we had too much goddamned freedom.

Of course those guys were the other side, the Nixonites, the conservative hate groups, the KKK, the John Birch Society, the McCarthy-ites and later the Reaganites and the Bushites and the modern Republican party, the guys who in the end prevailed and gave us the plastic POS greed-based, war-loving, bomb-dropping, torture-embracing, eco-polluting, self-absorbed, unsustainable, deep-in-denial, superficial suck-ass society we have today. The ultra-conservative monied class were too comfortable, self-satisfied, power-drunk, unimaginative, greedy and short-sighted to see that we could not afford to keep doing all of the wasteful and destructive things that most of them had built their fortunes on. They could never swallow the truth of those who were smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall. What could a bunch of scientists and intellectuals know anyway? Never mind the damned hippies. They could never imagine that their chickens would one day come home to roost. Well the chickens are coming folks, they look like some kind of giant mutant zombie pterodactyls – and man are they pissed! Global warming will punish the guilty rich as surely as it will the innocent poor.

That may be the one silver lining. We should've listened to the damned hippies. For whatever it may or may not be worth, I keep arguing for a new paradigm. One the hippies would approve of. One where ecology, sustainability, science, compassion, kindness, peace and the general welfare are the highest values. One where we don't drop bombs on people, and one where even poor people matter. Alas.

Question: Make sure to wear flowers in your hair if you visit which famous hippie city?
Answer: San Francisco