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Sewers of Paris: West Coast 60s Psychedelic Culture (Ep 414 - David/Jimi Hendrix) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-19 17:00:59
Imported:
2023-04

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Content

My guest this week is documentary filmmaker David Weissman, who was in exactly the right place at the right time to have a front-row seat to one of the most revolutionary periods in American culture. In fact, he wasn’t just an observer of the Venice Beach LSD scene in the 60s, or of San Francisco’s chaotic drag cauldron in the 70s — he was an active participant, exploring and enjoying an explosion of music, live performance, and a rejection of institutions that once seemed unassailable. My conversation with David delves deep into what it was like to bounce around beach communities, music festivals, and underground theater in California during that time … and he has so many great stories and memories to share that we’re going to be breaking our conversation into multiple parts, with the first coming this week. I hope you’ll find David’s perspective as fascinating as I did.

Comments

Anonymous

It was a real pleasure hearing David's recollections of the Hippie era. I arrived in SF the year of David's Bar Mitzvah. I was living on Castro Street (full floor two bedroom flat $350) when Harvey was elected and, subsequently, killed. During the night of the police retaliatory raid on Castro bars, a carload of cops was parked across my driveway drinking beer preparatory for their fun night in the Castro. Those days marked the end of a growing sympathy between gays and the cops - not a huge growth, but not insignificant. The previous Halloween (a massive event in the Castro) - a cop wearing a pig snout had posed for a photo for my visiting cousin - a photo now lost, alas. David remembers the joy, the naivete, the feeling of always being in the now, much as I do. I have never seen a movie or show that got it right - it is always a caricature. There are a few good YouTube videos from then that pick up some of the ambience. I am sure that the fact I was young makes the memories happy ones, but even allowing for that it was a unique and wonderful time and place. I never tried LSD, but I agree that it was heavily influential in the evolution of that era. I can't wait for more of your interview with David.

mattbaume
>>100162841

Thank you! It's so interesting to hear what The Castro was like back then. I was there quite a few years later -- around 2002 to 2010 -- when things were very different. I remember Jane Warner as a friendly police presence in the neighborhood, which made the Sweep feel like such a distant nightmare.

Sam Aronow
>>100162841

You were there 2002-10? I was in SF 2008-10– but at Lake Merced, which is only slightly historic and not at all glamourous or exciting.

Anonymous

The emergence of The Castro as a gay district seemed to happen overnight. When my partner and I moved to 18th St, a block off Castro, in late 1969, the street had a working class commercial area from Market to 19th St. No one thought of it as a gay district as far as I know. There were three gay bars in the general area - the Missouri Mule on Market, the Pendulum on 18th a block west of Castro and the Mistake (spelled with a backward 'S') on 18th a block east. There were several sleepy straight bars with shuffleboard tables or pool tables. People spoke of Polk Street as the hub of the main gay area. After a year or so, Ken and I moved a little further away and within a year or two, all the straight bars became popular gay pars - the J&J became the Midnight Sun, the A&D (straight bars have such original names!) became the Nothing Special. A pharmacy at 8th and Castro became the Elephant Walk (main focus of the police on the night they attacked) and other places became the Twin Peaks, Toad Hall, etc. Other businesses either were acquired by gay owners or became very gay-friendly. The street became a gay social center in - I'd say - less than two years, much as the Haight-Ashbury had become the overnight center of hippie-dom a few years earlier.

mattbaume
>>100302637

Wow I didn't realize it happened that fast. Also, can't believe Pendulum was around for that long!!!

mattbaume
>>100162841

Lake Merced may not be glamorous but it played a pivotal role in the area's early sewage engineering -- my other weird hyperfixation!