and live almost rent-free. “The 60s were about sex,
drugs, and rock n’ roll, about peace, love and freedom,”
J.Joe says. “There were free stores on Haight Street. The
Grateful Dead played the Panhandle and Golden Gate
Park for free. They lived opposite the Hell’s Angels who
became their performance bodyguards. The Grateful
Dead smoked pot with Country Joe.” Then J.Joe hits a
chord on his guitar, points out Country Joe’s house and
plays Country’s Joe’s Vietnam
War Rag,
which he says
is the most famous anti-Vietnam song ever written.
He points out Janis Joplin’s house opposite
Country Joe’s. “Janis wasn’t beautiful, but she was the
pin-up girl of The Haight. She had one night stands
with everyone.” He plays Joplin’s
One Night Stand.
Then he tells us that the song
If You’re Going to San
Francisco
was written by John Phillips of The Mamas &
The Papas, but was sung by Phillips’ childhood buddy,
Scott McKenzie. “That was the swan song, the nail in
the coffin,” he says. He sings
If You’re Going to San
Francisco
and says that in 1967 Jerry Garcia said,
“Don’t come to San Francisco and wear a flower in
your hair. Bring a blanket and money.”
On Haight Street, the stores are straight out of the
60s: tattoo parlors and head shops, second-hand
clothing stores and stores selling tie-died T-shirts with
peace symbols. A sign at Ben & Jerry’s reads, Peace
Love & Ice Cream. “This is Ground Zero,” J.Joe says.
“It changed everything in the western world. Without
the Haight, there would be no music festivals, no yoga
or yoga pants and no Apple. Jobs and Woziack were
hippies who spearheaded the personal computer to
share love.”
We have time for just one more tour, this one
spontaneously guided by me. After three days of
bonding with the city, I have decided to claim my San
Franciscan heritage. We find 20 Romolo Place in North
Beach on a steep two-block-long street. The apartment
building is khaki-colored and dingy. I don’t care — it’s
on my birth certificate, my earliest home. For the first
time in my life, I feel like a San Franciscan.
“IN 1906, THE SAN
FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
HAD A 7.8 MAGNITUDE,
BUT HAIGHT ASHBURY
DIDN’T GO UP IN SMOKE
UNTIL THE 1960’S.”
DESTINATION SPOTLIGHT
DS
Destination Spotlight
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WINTER / SPRING 2016
197
