stories from the haight

I have a friend who lives in The Haight. He's lived there for about ten years. I was at his apartment one evening, and we needed something from the store. We went down the steep stairs from his apartment, through the security gate, carefully stepped over the homeless man sleeping in the doorway, and crossed the street to a small grocery.

As we made our way through the crowd of panhandlers in front of the store, a litany of negation started coming from my friend: ``no, no, no, no, sorry, no, no, no, sorry, no, no, no...'' I looked at my friend: he was staring ahead and down, not making eye contact with anyone. I wasn't sure he even noticed that he was saying anything. He wasn't upset, or angry, this appeared to be just The Way One Entered The Store. We made our purchases and left, and on the way out, he repeated the same ritual.

``Wow,'' I said.

``Those same guys have been standing there since I moved here,'' he said.

I remembered that once he had said to me, ``I need to move out of the Haight, I'm sick of stepping over the human debris every time I walk out the door.'' That was five years earlier. He still hasn't moved.

Jamie Zawinski

"Let's go get a drink at Bruno's," Al said. He knew it was an offer I couldn't refuse. After all, what better fix for a little boredom than to immerse yourself in the Haight's own palace of pure pathological psychosis.

Bruno, an irritable old man with many a screw loose, is the proprietor of a fine San Francisco establishment called the Persian Aub Zam Zam (affectionately called "Bruno's" in this part of town). The Zam Zam is a small dimly lit bar on Haight Street whose decor hasn't changed in decades. Bruno opens the bar only when he feels like it. I've stumbled across it open for business at 7:30 am on my way to work and closed Saturday night in the heat of the party hour.

So we walked over to Bruno's and entered his little twilight-zoned corner of the universe. Luckily there were two seats left at the bar. To no surprise, nobody was sitting at the tables. As soon as Bruno approached, Al ordered a scotch and I ordered a vodka martini. We both knew that if we hesitated a moment too long, Bruno wouldn't serve us. We made it for now.

In through the door came a guy and his girlfriend. At this point there weren't any seats left at the bar. The conversation hushed as Bruno turned to the new patrons.

"The tables are closed," he drawled.

"That's alright, we'll stand" the guy said to Bruno.

"I only serve those seated at the bar."

"But there aren't any seats at the bar."

"Well I guess you'll have to go that bar down the street. They play that nice rock-and-roll music there."

"What do you mean?... we want a drink!"

"I guess you'll have to come back on a Monday night when it's raining, there'll be a seat at the bar then."

"I can't believe this, you won't serve me a drink?"

"It's time for you to leave."

The guy made some smart-ass comment and steamed out onto the sidewalk.

As the door swung closed, Bruno turned to the rest of us and said, "And go back to Osh Kosh where you came from."

Al sipped his scotch and gave me that look that said, "This is better than television any night!"

chip

The Haight-Ashbury district is, of course, famous for its Summer of Young Acidhead Love, back in 1967, when I was but two years old. But even though most people agreed that the whole place had changed by 1984, the changes did not preclude a whole new generation of psychedelians from setting up microsocieties there in the eighties. I was part of that Haight-Ashbury "scene".

My home in 1984 was actually in Berkeley, at Barrington Hall, which was a weird enough place in its own right. But I found myself spending about half my time sleeping over at a Haight-Ashbury squat, with two young hippie guys who worked at Market Street head shops, and a snotty punk-rocker speedfreak named Jerry.

The two hippies, Mark and Mike, were bisexual. Mark was my boyfriend. At that time, I didn't find anything discomforting about it: I thought of myself as a latter-day flower child, deeply tuned in to the whole idea of free love. AIDS, at that time, was just a thing we'd hear about on the news once in a while, a naggingly scary clarion-call from over the future horizons, but in 1984, it was not yet an immediate sort of concern. Since I'd grown up in an unbelievably dull, nondescript suburb of Los Angeles, where even the stoner guys spent most of their time yakking about cars and stereos and girls, I was entranced with the way Mark had a notebook in which he wrote about things like "serpentflower crystals" and "the Universal Isness of Purple Crown Chakra light". And I was dazzled by his hair, which was very blonde, and very soft, and most of all...very long. 

The squat, which was a first story two-bedroom unit in a duplex on McAllister Street near Masonic, had these tiny miniature sliding-door bedrooms, which were festooned with faux-Indian tapestries and lifesize fluorescent posters of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix which the guys would bring back from their headshop jobs. It was supposedly an actual squat, but I'm pretty sure those three cute boys had to pay some sort of rent to the gentleman upstairs. I believe he took his payments in sexual services, or drugs, or perhaps both. I'd always be hearing the guys speaking of the upstairs neighbour with the kind of careful reverence one usually reserves for talking about one's boss, or parents, or the spouse one's cheating on but depends upon for support. The guys all seemed to think that I shouldn't hear of whatever arrangement that existed there. Girls just weren't supposed to know about that kind of thing. It vaguely irritated me. Did they really think I was that stupid? Or that uptight?

One cold, rainy night in the middle of summer, Mike and Jerry and Mark and I dosed on LSD, as we had done just about every weekend. I had a deep, enormous love for, and taste for, this particular chemical. I even had the nickname "Psyche" back then.

This acid had been dipped unevenly, I think, and I ended up getting a much stronger hit than the guys did. After a couple of hours of practically nothing happening to them, Jerry said "Fuck this" and pulled out some speed, along with a mirror and a straw, and passed it around. Everyone snorted lines but me, as I was starting to come on to the acid and the last thing I wanted to even think about was speed.

It was beginning to get unpleasant. I was feeling like I was treading water in a tidal wave, and now everyone around me was on a speed wavelength instead of an acid wavelength. I began to get very disturbed. I wasn't having any sort of textbook freakout--I never have had one of those, ever. Just "bummers"...and this was really beginning to have all the hallmarks of a "bummer". I pleaded with Mark to stay with me and help me sort out my mind, but he was wired on speed and the guys all were itching to go out and do something. In the rain. I was tripping way too hard for that nonsense. But Mark, in his typically careless way, didn't give a damn. He told me he'd be back. And the three of them left me...alone, in a room with no electricity, barely any furniture, and no heat.  Oh joy. 

In that tiny, dark pad, I kept bumping into hallucinatory geometric objects and falling down as I rummaged around frantically for a candle which I couldn't find...a situation which soon proved to be moot anyway, since I discovered that I had no matches or lighter or even a working gas stove. The guys had taken every light in the place out with them for their cigarettes. They hadn't even thought to leave me any of those.

  I finally huddled under the ratty blanket from Mark's bed with my Walkman. I was, at that moment, incredibly thankful for this marvelous new invention which let me carry my music everywhere I went. But I dug around in my purse and realised I only had one tape with me: Brian Eno's Another Green World. It was either that, or Jerry's raucous punk bootlegs. I elected to play the Eno: over and over again.

For the next three hours or so, give or take a century or two, I lay there alone in the freezing apartment, thoroughly absorbing, and being absorbed by, this wonderful album. Slowly, one knotted thread at a time, I unravelled my consciousness and straightened out its complex, complicated tapestries. I cried along with the sky, whose tears were pelting the dirty window of the squat...

After the album had played once, then twice, the frightening confusion and emotional pain had drained away from those threads - untangled, the life in them was no longer "stopped up" and now it ::: floooed smoathhhly ::: through my system.

After a long while, I went to sleep -- or whatever hypnagoguic state passes for sleep when you're tripping on acid -- with the 'phones still on my head and the tape running through its fourth or fifth recycling. To this day, I can't listen to that album without remembering that night. The association's literally acid-etched into my brain.

In the wee hours of the morn, I woke up. The boys were still not back from whatever romp they'd gone gallivanting on. When they got back, they'd be tweaked and tired and likely grumpy. And I had...well, issues with Mark about his behaviour the prior night. Unless you are a complete jerk, you just don't leave someone you care about alone in a cold room while she's tripping.

I realised at that point things would never be quite right between us. Acid can lend an ego-transcendent perspective to any situation: I wasn't just thinking of myself, I was thinking also of Mark. Just as his behaviour had hurt me, my overweening attachment to him, my frequent desire for him to stay home with me instead of going out and doing the things that young bisexual hustler types did in the night -- these things were going to hurt him, too. It was a pretty heavy realisation for a 19 year old hippie chick to make. It was the beginning of the end of that relationship...and that, in turn, was the beginning of the end of that particular phase of my life. Though I'd certainly have more trips in later years, it would never again be with the total reckless abandon that I'd had before.

I left the squat around six in the morning. I didn't bother to leave the guys a note. Although I didn't know it at the time, that was the last I'd ever be seeing of that place.

The sky had cleared while I had slept, and everything had that just-rained feel: the preternaturally fresh scent of things cleaned by a night storm.

I remember taking a felt-tip pen from my purse and writing ENO SPELLED BACKWORDS IS ONE on a wall as I ambled slowly down Fell Street, heading for the BART station to go home.

Demi Monde

Every other weekend we left Sacramento and headed to "the city." Some called it "Frisco" and frankly, the word conjured up a feeling of overwhelming nausea in my gut. The term, "Frisco," reminds me of a cross between Fritos and polyester leisure suits.

We'd load up in the station wagon and head out for cultural events galore. The 60's provided an opportunity for obscure dressing. I hate to admit a brief bout of mod, Carnaby Street dressing. There was a hat that I purchased, in the Haight, that was navy, white and yellow. I had to stick a washcloth in it to keep its poofiness up and to complete the ensemble that I'm certain was more garish than stunning.

It was not long that both my sister and I began to wear Indian dresses that were shapeless sacks of vivid color. I noted that pharmaceutical reps appreciated our frocks and felt hipper than usual when men on corners would offer: hash, acid, mushrooms....

Look but do not buy. That was my motto. Instead, as a foolish young girl, I would flash open my purse to allow the drug reps a visual opportunity to check out the package of Marlboro's that I'd purchased at the theater's vending machine. I had reached the pinnacle of chic.

Years later, I visited the Haight once again. Trendy fashion was no longer an issue for me. (nor is it now.) I visited a friend who modeled for I. Magnin. She and her beau resided in the upper floors of a store in the Haight. I was mesmerized.

I recall the ground floor of the store and the display windows being filled with unique textural/tactile art. There were Dobermans. As one ascended the stair well, there was a an enormous brick wall. On that wall was painted a gigantic fried egg and a simple statement.

The statement and the Haight are synonymous to me. I am a nephrology nurse and am working on my MSN. I see patients constantly and each time I do, I see the Haight and I see the statement on the wall and it continues to remind me that there is.... "One less bell to answer; one less egg to fry."

Carol

I grew up in Jersey. Spent a lot of time in New York City growing up, getting the culture, getting into trouble, but mostly just getting the attitude.

The first time I visited the West Coast was when I was still at Rutgers. My sister took me to San Francisco. And the first place we stopped was the Haight-Ashbury. Even though I was pretty cynical and had "grown up," and this was the '90s, I was taken by the whole scene, this neighborhood of myth, the place where the Summer of Love had happened. Sure, now there's a Gap and a Ben and Jerry's at ground zero, but the hippies from back in the day weren't completely replaced by yuppies. There were the Deadheads and the panhandlers, the punks and the dealers.

We parked the car, got out and and the shaggiest, most colorful old burnout on the street gave me the winningest smile ever and said "Welcome home, soldier."

A couple years later I moved into the Haight.

Carlito