Haight Ashbury Ltd.

What a day! Whew. Incredible and inspiring. Woke up, and drove into the city by the Bay. They dropped me off, went for a little jaunt, and the first thing I did was steal a newspaper. (All bullshit anyway.) Yes, you in House 218! It was me! You'll come back from your long, boring yuppie vacation, and realize that one of your newspapers is missing. Boo hoo. And I got away with it, too!

Climbed that long hill, up 'n' over to Haight Ashbury. Yezz, the centerpoint of all that nice (burp) hippie change-the-world stuff. Still pretty nice, I guess. But the Tourists have taken over. (The Tourists are coming! The Tourists are coming!) Makes a place go from making a change, to makin' change, if ya know what I mean. But it's all good ...
Two blocks from Haight St. something caught my eye. There was a flea market going on, so I sauntered in. Seems it was a French high school, and they were selling books and candles and stuff, to go on an excursion. "To France?" I asked. No, they said, to L.A.! Aw, geez ... nothing but a stone's throw! Most of the books were in french. Chic! A very nice lady came and chatted me up, and was probably a teacher or parent. She offered me coffee and crepes (delicious!), and I realized that it would be an insult to say no, so ya know ... And told me about this interesting poem.

She said, "You know, people get hung up on "time together" and and have all these expectations. But really, it's all about learning from one another, you know, like stars in a moving universe, and with each connection, we gain something. It may not be forever, but we take something from each one that has touched us." I thought that was just beautiful.

And I helped them carry books and read my newspaper, and spent a few hours just talking to people. It was wonderful! I asked the woman if they'd had any trouble lately, what with all this sort of "anti-French" sentiment going on. Her eyes perked up, "Oh!" she exclaimed, "you mean Freedom fries!?" This is what they call french fries now. Um, yeah, for example, says I. "Oh, most of that is just ignorance ..." she said with a wink. Man, I enjoyed my time with those splendid people. And they called me a Good Samaritan, as I walked down the hill to Haight Ashbury. Guess so, I have joy in my heart. I keep my mind fine-tuned for adventure and spontaneous banter. But I do have a wild streak in me, I told 'em ...

Haight St. on a sun-drenched day. Had an intersting discussion with some cat, said he was a musician, about that song by U-2 that goes, "It's a beautiful day." Heard that it was about a guy who'd lost everything, yet somehow walks out the door, and is glad to be alive. Could be true ...

Met this punk dude who was from Magdeburg, Germany, and yelled, "Hey, Calico!" as I was walking by. He said that Magdeburg sucks, and I believe him. Asked him if he liked California. He said, I guess so. Told me that they feed you peanut butter and jelly in prison, in California. Yuck. He said he was hungry, so I split the French bread that the people at the school gave me. "This is GOOD bread!" he croaked. Mm-hmm, I said, as we walked. I was slowly making my way back down to Slim's, for a concert, and he was walking to Food Not Bombs. Free grub, he said. Mm-hmm, I said. As we walked we chatted, and he went on and on about all kinds of things like countries and opinions agreements and disagreements and whatnot. I nodded now and then, but said eventually, "I guess it all comes down to respect. That's what's missing." He stopped. "Yeah - that's the word! You said the truth!" I hit it on the head, I guess. And some where in there, he confessed to me that he thought all the tourists in Haight/Ashbury were "smug." Gotchya. Then we kept on, and met some guy who offered to pull out and play a song on guitar, if we gave him a cig. And he got his wish. Played some nice acoustic spanish style guitar, too. The punk said, "Hey, can you play it a bit louder??"
Then I went off on my own, and I came to a great record shop on Market St. Really great, because it was all vinyl. No CD's! Only tapes and thousand of records. From the Byrds to Metallica to Paul Anka to weird Hawaiian syrup to Charlie Parker to ...well, you get the picture. And I got in this long and wonderful discussion with the owner about how great old reel to reel tapes are, the feeling and the sound. His face really lit up and came alive. Man, that was something. I just got chills all over. We carried on about music (analog, baby!) for a long, long time. I enjoyed it immensely. "Do you have a card," I asked. Nope, he answered. Awesome! He said, "You can never really get that kind of emotional, pure sonic warmth from CD's, like you can on vinyl and reel to reel." And I agree! Although I do dabble in computers, too, to be completely honest, you see. Music has to come from the heart, however it's made. But this guy was a purist, and a purist he shall remain. Hats off, strong man! Keep the Analog faith!

At some point I read in that paper I stole, that immediately after that nasty bomb blast the other day, the culprits were beheaded. Eeeek!

Then on to the gig. Back to Slim's! There I got into a deep conversation about synchronicity with Fredi Mac, a screaming jedi poet dude from Oakland. Pretty hip hop. Born and raised in Oakland. Old school. A real rapper. Said that music is only about creating (and goals are the illusion.) Yeahhh. I had the great pleasure of hanging out with my man Kurt, a forever Calico man, and now playing trumpet with Green Day. Yep, he's the guy in the Bee costume ... We were watching a band called Oslo (like the city). Check those guys out. Oh, yeah, and there was a three-hundred pound transvestite with huge boobs, a cowboy hat, and a beard, in the crowd. Rock 'n' roll !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was an amazing day. Just hit the street and see what's out there. People are incredible beings (if you let them be).

I'll miss you Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco!
Next stop, the Midwest.

Posted by calico at May 18, 2003 03:10 AM

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