In 1977, ten years after the fabled Summer of Love, I made my first pilgrimage to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. I was twenty-six years old, a confirmed, card-carrying member of the Baby Boom generation, someone who had come of age during that most insane of all decades: the 1960's. There is no way in the world I could have claimed to be a hippie. Not even close. And yet, even those of us who lived in the exiles of the Midwestern fly-over states were affected by the West Coast cultural movement; certainly the music, but also the fashions, and the political ideologies. Free love? Well, not so much. At least, for most of us. Drug use? That crept in later, during the 1970's. Life moves at a much slower pace in small town Illinois. A lot of us guys tried growing our hair long in high school, much to the dismay of our conservative parents. Myself, I managed to grow my hair as long as a modified Beatle look. With my stern father fighting me every step (and every strand) of the way, that's as far as it got. My own, personal hippie-esque countercultural phase didn't begin in earnest until I was nineteen years old and living on my own, away from the parental gaze.
San Francisco seemed like some mythical paradise that may not actually exist, but was rather the embodiment of a collective fantasy for those of us living in the flatlands, with no mountains or ocean views, and no colorful Victorian houses built on steep hills with cable cars running up and down the streets. I somehow expected to find Haight-Ashbury exactly like it had been shown to us on old TV shows, nightly newscasts, and in movies like PSYCH-OUT (1968). Of course, the reality was quite different. Not necessarily disappointing, but different. The city was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined. And Haight Street still had some countercultural landmarks that gave me the nostalgic vibe I was longing for. But it was also an area that was undergoing transformation and gentrification. There were plenty of quirky bars, restaurants and shops to be found. And some of them were quite expensive. Some of the hippies had obviously incorporated and decided capitalism wasn't such a bad idea after all. I spent a fair amount of time wandering around the neighborhood, talked to a lot of people, and soaked up the atmosphere. It was my own version of the Summer of Love, ten years after the fact.
There have been many documentaries about that mythical summer of 1967. All of them show pretty much the same images, use the popular music of the time, and feature comments from many of the people who lived in that area and experienced it all first hand. This 2017 documentary from the BBC goes a little bit deeper than most of the others that I've seen over the years. The copy I have is from The Video Beat, and is a very good DVD-R print.
The documentary, narrated by Gina McKee, examines the roots of the hippie movement from three different perspectives:
1. The Nature Boys
2. The Truth Seekers
3. The Politicals
The Nature Boy movement goes back to the early twentieth century and a number of young men who dropped out of society and lived in the woods, eating natural foods and trying to live in harmony with the earth. One of the later followers of this movement, a man named Eden Abez, wrote a song called Nature Boy in 1951, a song made popular by Nat King Cole. Other followers would eventually relocate to San Francisco and open up one of the first health food stores. Their influence, combined with the Beat movement, evolved into what would later become part of the hippie counterculture.
The Truth Seekers were influenced by writers and artists such as Alastair Crowley, the British proponent of Eastern Mysticism, and later occultism, Aldous Huxley, the author of a book entitled The Doors of Perception, and others who promoted the experimentation with the drug LSD. This drug had been around since 1938, and was being used by the American military establishment in experiments with the goal of using it against our enemies. The drug was still legal in the early 1960's and was becoming popular among intellectuals and young people. This growing interest in LSD, along with the widespread use of marijuana, became one of the most important behavioral shifts of the San Francisco scene. Several people interviewed for the documentary talk about their mystical experiences from taking acid. One of them is Eric Burden, the lead singer of The Animals. There are also quotes from Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, who was given the drug by the CIA. And there was an surprising bit of information about actor Cary Grant, who apparently took over 100 acid trips.
The Political movement began largely at the nearby Berkeley campus of the University of California, the acknowledged birthplace of the radical, Marxist thought, spearheaded by professors like Herbert Marcuse. This growing movement led to the formation of groups like Students For a Democratic Society and its even more radical offshoot, the Weather Underground. Also born from these roots were the Black Panthers and the Women's Liberation organizations.
These three cultural components somehow began to merge in the hills of San Francisco and came together in a public celebration called The Human Be-In, A Gathering of the Tribes, held in Golden Gate Park in January, 1967. It was a celebration of music, drugs, free love, etc. As the months went on, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, once a community of like minded, peace loving folks, became a nightmare of runaway teenagers and increasing use of harder drugs. The Summer of Love ended with the public demonstration of the Death of the Hippie organized by The Diggers, a group of folks who operated a free store and tried to support the community in any way they could.
The documentary uses interviews and comments from many of the people who lived in the Haigh during those times. We hear from Peter Coyote, one of the founders of The Diggers, Country Joe McDonald, one of the prominent musicians of the period, Graham Nash, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Lewis of the rock group Moby Grape, Stewart Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, and Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane. We also hear from some of the political figures of the period, such as Bernadine Dohrn of the Weather Underground and Elaine Brown, former president of The Black Panthers.
As the documentary shows, the hippie experiment failed in most of its political efforts, but it still had profound influences in areas such as sexual mores and the New Age/Human Potential movements. It also discusses the connection between the 60's search for expanding consciousness and the electronic communication revolution. It speaks of the Internet Communes and the Interlinked Consciousness, largely brought into being by that very well known ex-hippie, Steve Jobs.
This film is an informative and enjoyable watch, not only for us Boomers, but for anyone wanting to learn about this fascinating time in human history. For me, having evolved into a much more conservative mode of living and thinking, the Summer of Love and everything it used to mean is mostly just another part of my lost youth that is fun to remember and even celebrate. What remains important for me will always be the music. That will never go out of style. Forget the politics. Most of those people were crazy. And forget the drugs. I may have smoked my share of grass in my 20's, but nothing ever made me consider LSD as a viable lifestyle choice. Thank God. But the music? Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company, Janis and Jimi, they still speak to my heart. Even though the Summer is over and gone.
