Category Archives: Lifestyles

Beat Zen Guru

Lifestyles, tell your story

Issue_07mesc

Oxford College was a step forward from Tift County’s time warp, but not by much. I stepped in to a world desperately clinging to antiquated rah-rah week starting with Freshman Hell Week, definitely another story. Luckily for me there were a few left over beatnik, proto-hippies among the entering freshman and among rising sophomores, the rulers of the insular world of Oxford isolated from the main campus and retaining some rules from another century. One being that the town literally closed about 7:30. Even the stoplight was turned to blink. A college student had nowhere to go on nights the snack bar wasn’t open. Women had to be signed in and out after 6. They had only recently won the right to sign themselves out for a weekend. Formerly a parent had to be responsible. Men were free to roam, but only sophomores could have a car and they were suppose to be kept in a controlled lot. Lucky people had an outside source of escape.

 

On weekends I was rescued by Pixie Ujhelyi  or someone she had sent in the faithful turquoise dart, another story. During the week I was imprisoned, so I was very happy when Jan Jackson, quintessential daffy hippie chick, said her boyfriend Martin about whom I had heard so much, was actually coming tonight and we could all ride somewhere for food and hangout. Well that meant riding to the Huddle House in Conyers since it was all that was that was open on Monday nights except filling stations for about fifty miles.

 

I got money and was headed to the girl’s dorm when this wiry little guy came out of the shadow. “Hey hippie, where you goin’?” He had a wide, smug grin and looked like a brown haired greaser gnome moving with angular lope.

 

Spider sense tingling. I had lived this scenario, where are his buddies hiding? But he grinned and laughed then walked back in the shadows. I raced to find Jan and my friends.

 

When I told her what had happened, she got a twinkle in her eye and said, “Meet my boyfriend Martin!” and the wiry guy again stepped out of the shadows laughing to himself.

 

“You hippies ready to ride for some chow?” With that, six clambered into his VW bus to go for coffee and sandwiches and a jukebox.

 

This was my introduction to Martin who was to become my beatnik hippie guru.

 

Shortly after, on a weekend Pixie had come for me, but would be unavailable to give me a ride back from her apartment near Oglethorpe. Calling around Oxford students I knew to be in Atlanta, I got Jan at Harvey’s house on 14th. She said Martin was taking her back and they’d come get me.

 

Gabi and I were sitting around the living room, where we had begun sharing one sleeping bag, much to the stern displeasure of her mother who stayed upstairs with Pixie in the one bedroom, which featured an opening so you could overlook, and overhear, everything that happened down below in the living room in a single sleeping bag at night. The thought that her mother was just above us listening was almost enough to extinguish the lust of two eighteen year olds in love. Almost enough,  Mrs. Ujhelyi wasn’t overly fond of this guy that came on weekends to extensively make love to her daughter.

 

There came a knock at the apartment door and in breezed Martin followed by Jan and two others talking and in a great mood. Martin sat at the table and pulled out a workmen’s lunchbox with a curved top. Jan had said he was always hungry. He was crumbling up some sort of relish and rolling cigarettes. Ohmigod, he’s got marijuana and Mrs. Ujhelyi is just up there and can see us! I realized with a shock.

 

Gabi saw my alarm and shrugged and smiled. Soon we were passing around the joints. Pixie acted shocked but made sure she got some good hits. My first time smoking and I was getting very high, but didn’t know it. Martin was a great guide to both of us about what was happening in my mind.  He was a bridge to the lingo of the beatniks, which strangely was suddenly not strange.

 

Bidding Gabi and Pixie an altered goodbye. We piled into Martin’s blue VW bus Ol’ Baby and were off down the length of Peachtree to catch I-20 at the capitol. The lights of traffic were a phantasm to my newly stoned mind. The trip back to Oxford lasted a joyful eternity with Martin giving his own Casady style rap on life as he drove. Jan added comments both sardonic and hilarious. Oh what a ride.

 

Oasis in Space

Lifestyles, tell your story

http://oasisinspace.spaces.live.com/

Driftin towards shiftin has its ups and downs detailed by Karen at www.whatsuponplanetearth.com (last 2 energy alerts) and I’m right there with those( the clunky parts). Here in 3D, I’ve had some serendipitous coincidences. Was (last gasp) trying to (once again) transcribe my book ( Manic-Depressive Tours) from notebooks to computer (daunting/what’s the point?) when RB sent me a blog link by a fellow Atlantean http://subgeniusslack.blogdrive.com  and it’s quite invigorating TSTL… especially the Byron Pop fest link (chapter on that in MDT) and the www.messyoptics.com has lots of pics of old friends too numerous to mention here BUT, the one of Norris at 15th street and the caption  inspires me to share part of that chapter:

I met Archie while I  was living at the “Chakra commune” of 15th Street in Atlanta. I moved there with some Chakra band members after returning from their Texas tour.  (Later on that story).This one-block neighborhood between the High Museum of Art and West Peachtree St. was a menage of lovely, forested* old Victorians housing- an esoteric mix of hippie communes with a spiritual bent.  On our immediate left were Krishnas, next to them The Children of God (hippie Christians), on our right Meher Babas, across the street The Theosophicals, ours was loosely TM-ers.  In the other houses and mixed in with all these were artists, musicians, actors and techies at the Museum.  Each house seemed to have a band. We’d often just close the block to have “battle of the bands” parties or jams.

After Texas and the wild events that led up to me landing on that bus, I was glad to be back in Hotlanta but feeling a bit disjointed though I loved this house and its illustrious inhabitants:

Through the screened porch and the ornate oval-glass door was the living room on left-home of Duckworth- artist, actor, street-theater magician and set designer at the Museum theater .Witty, wirey small but a ready spring of energy expressed in his head of dark spiral-coiled hair. He had a bunk bed in corner curtained by a billowing parachute tacked up here and there by his collection of oddities and works of art.

On the right a step up led to the room of Norris, black conga drummer in Chakra- his park attire colorful harem pants, rarely any shirt or shoes, a brilliant scarf on head turban style. He’s a most agile yogarian-full of generous joy and humor.

Next room on right housed Ted Levine, white drummer with a most amazing afro, his dark brows, piercingly intelligent, observant, amused eyes lit up his angular face. He had a picky, precise adherence to his monkish environment, diet and yoga/meditations routines which is why we moved to separate rooms as soon as we got back from Texas.

Remaining on right, next room housed 2 sweet dancer actresses/artist/jewelers whose names I forget as they were rarely there.

Across from them Jimmy Godwin, laughing  Chakra guitar man. An excellent player-he had long, strawberry-blond hair and an effervescent personality.

Working back up the hall, the large kitchen, our only communal space (other than the porches and half of the living room). We shared our macrobiotic meals there and other interactions. It had lots of aqua-blue open cabinets, butcher block counter tops, a great big gas stove and a large farm table-a cheerful, vibrant room.

My room was next up in what should have been the dining room.  It had only one window but the built in buffet and shelves above housed my collection of books, trinkets, autoharp, zither and dulcimer.  Only room for a single bed (which suited me as well-only room for me). My treasure was a beautiful old quilt I’d found at a funky antique store. It had silken and velvet patches that were embroidered and joined by colorful, decorative stiches. It was in wonderful condition and I was so enchanted by it. I wanted to know its history. …..and blah blah blah… (& that’s a whole other story).  …

(The turretted/balconied 2nd floor had it’s own cast of colorful characters…later on that -in MDT, not here)

all that typical hippie junk no one believes in anymore. Right?

feed your head, history, Lifestyles

Posted by CN Staff on August 22, 2007 at 09:09:59 PT

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist 

Source: SF Gate

USA — Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s happening in the newly “greening” of America and don’t say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored optimism. OK?

I’m talking about, say, energy-efficient lightbulbs. I’m looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I’m talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins.

I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation’s oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: We have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth.” Even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, “it’s the right thing to do” (read: “It’s purely economic and all about their bottom line”).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing pro-environment sea change happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along.

All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMA seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the grid and it’s about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, hemp-covered apology.

Here’s a suggestion, from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the damage they’ve done to the soul of the planet all these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from the former hippies themselves. You know, from those who’ve been working for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma. You think?

Of course, you can easily argue that much of the “authentic” hippie ethos — the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for civil rights, the experimentation — has been totally leached out of all these new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cone and Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this somehow make the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not.

You might also just as easily claim that much of the nation’s reluctant turn toward environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it’s taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the nation’s incredibly obese butt into gear and force consumers to wake up to the gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts wondering, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and free shipping from Amazon?” Of course, without the ’60s groundwork, without all the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we’d be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed.

But if you’re really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty, lazy, responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what’s called the reactionary simpleton’s view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of culture as a whole. You know, just like America.

But, you know, whatever. The proof is easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the ’60s counterculture are still so intact and potent that even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It’s all right there: Treehugger.com is the new ’60s underground hippie zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes, NIN and the Dixie Chicks are writing anti-Bush, anti-war songs for a new, ultra-jaded generation.

And, oh yes, speaking of good ol’ MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new respect. Staid old Time mag just ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing psycho-spiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire “excessive,” “naive” drug culture of yore in favor of much more “sane” and “careful” scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.

Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science, pro-pharmaceutical, ultraconservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary hippie mantras about expanding the mind and touching God through drugs were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now — though that might be because of all the mushrooms he’s been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.

Of course, true hippie values mean you’re not really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don’t give a damn for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the head and saying, “See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, nimrods.”

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie junk no one believes in anymore. Right?

Make Bread sell The Bird

Lifestyles, The Bird

sellbird

  Many people in the hip community made cash by selling the Bird. The Bird deal made it so you couldn’t lose money and could, by selling regularly, make a decent living by hippie standards.

shapeimage_3Birds were mailed to me at Oxford College and I sold them in the cafeteria evenings. It was considered uncool to not pay over the stated price and magnanimously say, “Keep the change!”

Fridays I would race in my slow but steady Celestial Omnibus VW in I-20, up I-75 to the Birdhouse on 14th, to start. If I had money, I’d buy Birds. If not, they would front a few to sell, return and repeat until you had cash to buy Birds to carry wherever to sell.

Weekends I’d try to get 14th and Peachtree where the Uniform company had a lawn shaded by huge trees. People would hang out and talk to you or nap in the shade. The job was to barker Birds. You could walk along the edge of the street holding the latest cover up to see and try to catch the eye of each driver. Acting a bit for the tourists always got money.

It was always a a trip. friday and Saturday nights young, rich hipsters headed to the park would pay not 25 cents, but $5 to the “real” hippie selling Birds. Determined to be wild suburban middle aged couples where the woman wanted to “kiss a real hippie”, you’d let the husband show off by leeringly asking for marijuana by some cool, unknown nickname he had heard who knows where, and ask if it was true it was an aphrodisiac. Or pass you party favors of one style or another to be hidden under the tree until you were ready to leave. You also met a lot of good friendly folks.

Cops would come by and stop. Some decently friendly. Some on power trip staring and trying to make you nervous enough to step in the street and be arrested for “impeding traffic” even if the street was empty.

riotcop
Same cop at the Piedmont Police Riot

My worst experience came on my second day selling at that corner. A really fat young crewcut cop on a tricycle pulled up stopping just inches from my feet. he took his time standing up on the trike and swinging over one ham leg and stepping down. A moment to work that gunbelt around and up to where there should have been a waist. straighten his cap. Then suddenly pull his gun and crouch pointing it at my face a few inches away. I had grown up in a small town and until that very minute I had thought all cops were peace officers just making everyone safe. This cop changed my mind when he said a word aloud I had only seen in print before, and rarely then.

“Come on MotherF__ker! Give me a reason to shoot! Please, you hippie Mother___ker!” he screamed blowing spit like some redneck sheriff caricature in a drive-in movie. His manner, the gun in my face and what he had screamed outloud scared me to death, and it showed. He held the pose oblivious to the horrified faces in cars streaming by. He held it through a  stoplight cycle and a half, as judged by cars stopping. He  laughed cruelly and put up his gun. Chuckling he walked  back and laboriously swung his ham back over the trike’s gas tank. Like any good silly movie, it wouldn’t crank till the third try then sputtered alive.  He charged forward and I had to jump aside as he rode off very pleased with himself.

This was absolutely shocking to me and was a step in radicalizing my view of mindless authority.

One of the best days selling the Bird was before the start of the Second Atlanta Pop Festival. There was no bread to spare at my house so we were not planning to go down to Byron. Then a parade of incredible vehicles of hippies just checking out The Strip before heading down to Byron proceeded down Peachtree. Amazing painted cars and schoolbuses revamped into sculptures on wheels. A sparkling city dump truck with music blasting from inside. The driver laughed, pushed a lever and the tail end rose open like to dump. Inside was furniture, an 8-track blasting and about ten stoned laughing people trying to run up the curved shiny insides.

By dark I raced home and told Gabi to get some stuff and let’s call some people and head down to this party. We’ll just play in the parking lot, we don’t need to get in front of the stage to hear the good music. Anyway there is suppose to be a free stage off in the woods a bit. We packed the Celestial Omnibus and drove through the night to Byron. The expressway was clogged as we got near.

We crossed the median and went back an exit and drove the wrong way down a parallel access road with lights out then turned out through a field towards lots of lights. Soon we had stumbled into the festival past cops trying to turn back the multitudes already peacefully ignoring them. It was worth the trip.

 

Smack Conspiracy

Lifestyles, Politics

The Great Speckled Bird Vol 2 # 19 July 21, 1969 pg. 3

Smack Conspiracy

smackart by Ron Ausburn

DON’T BE FORCED TO BUY-IF HE CAN GET HARD DRUGS HE CAN GET GRASS AND ACID- DEMAND AN ALTERNATIVE-IT’S YOUR LIFE- DON’T BE FORCED TO BUY

 Write it off to paranoid delusions if you want, this story …

Early this year the United States government initiated a massive effort to dry up the flow of marijuana from Mexico to the U.S. The border was tightly sealed; growing fields in Mexico were destroyed by napalm and chemical defoliants dropped from U.S. planes flown by U.S. pilots; growers have been given long prison sentences by the Mexican government under pressure of

U.S. authorities.

This campaign was successful—grass is scarce from coast to coast, what is available is largely of poor quality and very expensive. It will be a month or so before the majority of the domestic crop is harvested and is on the market. . . Big Deal? Check out the scene—

Every major city in the United States, including Atlanta, has been hit in the last month by large quantities of heroin, seconol, amphetamines, and other “hard’ drugs, addictive drugs. The street is full of the shit, $5 a hit now, next week it will be $10, the month after $20, The Atlanta 14th Street area and similar sections of other cities throughout the nation will then be hit with the break-ins, burglaries and muggings which inevitably follow a heavy hard drug scene. This has not yet happens in Atlanta, but may if the scene gets heavier.

Everyone on the street knows what is going on, including, perhaps especially, the police—BUT NOBODY IS BEING BUSTED-not for heroin, not for amphetamine … an occasional bust for grass keeps the vice-squad happy…

What is happening, on a country-wide, coast-to-coast scale, is the knowing, government approved-if-not-directed, transformation of the hip street scene into a high crime hard drug scene, boosting Jedgar’s phoney addiction figures, justifying continued repression for possession of grass and acid, perhaps paving the way for the total destruction of the street scene in city after city by very willing police forces backed by “outraged” government officialdom and a totally media-manipulated public ..

It’s kind of like you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch- yours between the “Justice” department and the Syndicate, or so it looks from here.

—tc

 

Three friends and I were riding along Peachtree. We picked up a guy who was walking along 14th Street, and then decided to get some doughnuts. We looked for a Krispy Kreme along Peachtree but had no luck. Coming back, we were stopped at a red light when a police car pulled up behind us. After looking at us, the policeman backed up, looked at our license plate, then pulled alongside us again. He asked me how old I was. Everyone in the car stated their ages, from 17 to 21. He told us to pull over in the Sears parking lot. He followed us in and ordered us out of the car. After getting out, the policeman (who looked hardly twenty-one himself with blonde hair in a longish ‘surfer’ haircut) demanded to see our ID’S. He started firing questions. Everyone answered except the guy we had picked up. Then singled him out.

“Where did you get it?” the cop asked.

“Get what?”

“The dope you’re on.”

No answer.

 “Look, punk, you better give me some answers if you don’t wanna go to jail. You understand?”

“What?”

“Don’t say ‘what’ to me, say ‘what, sir.’ ” Now the pig was shouting. “Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah what?” he screamed several times.

“Yeah, I understand.”

The cop pushed him over to the police car and threatened to ‘smash his head in the street.’ He put him in the back seat, yelled a lot more shit about sir and dope, and then came back. ..

“You’re all gonna be in a lotta trouble if you don’t tell me where he got the dope,” said Hynnes (the pig’s name).

“We don’t know, we were just letting him ride with us.” said Kathi Kanz, the owner of the car.

“Oh, sure you were,” said the pig.

After a lot more bullshit the pig and some reinforcements searched the car. Making us stand behind the car, and having some fellow pigs make sure we didn’t peep, Hynnes (the pig’s name) showed us a hypodermic needle point he supposedly found in a bag of candy. No one has yet determined how it got there unless the policeman put it there himself.

More and more bullshit, a search of the trunk, and a search of the girls’ purses. A pig found some pills.

“What are these?”

“Throat lozenges.”

“And these?”

“Dexedrine. My dentist gave them to me.”

“You got a prescription?”

“No, it’s in Florida.”

Meanwhile back at the police car (four more cars and a paddy wagon have arrived by now) about eight pigs are yelling at the guy in the back as they throw his cigarettes in the street, make him sit up straight, shine the flashlight in his eyes, and make him say ‘sir’ over and over.

Thirty minutes later we’re all in the paddy wagon. Hynnes (the worst pig of all) comes over to the car. Patti Kanz is charged with violation of the Dangerous Drug Act and Violation of the Beer and Wine Ordinance ( a half bottle of Seagram’s Seven was found under the seat). Bob Montgomery, Leroy Hurst and I are charged with the same thing. Kathi Kanz the owner of the car, is charged with the same plus contributing to the delinquency of minors.

“Don’t worry,” said Hynnes, “We’ll have you out before that Pop Festival.”

The next day we had our hearing. The cop lied about the liquor being in the back seat and the car smelling from alcohol.

He did not mention the hypodermic needle point supposedly “found” in the car. Bond is set at $1,000 each. We are transferred to Fulton County Jail.

After nine days in jail, a bondsman has been paid 10% and we’re finally out. We have a lawyer. We’ve spent around $500 already, not counting the lawyer’s fee. If we’re found guilty, which our lawyer says isn’t very probable, chances are the penalty won’t be as severe as what’s happened already while we’re still innocent.

S/Richard Rochester

Tripping on the Strip, 1967

feed your head, Lifestyles, tell your story

                Tripping on the Strip, 1967

  – Rupert Fike

 Even though we knew the real hippies were far away,

on Haight Street, we took comfort in at least being freaks

to the white-bread gawkers who cruised the Strip

every weekend, whole families pointing from station wagons,

and then later came the worse-off cars with drunks leaning out –

Hey . . . Commie! You a boy or a girl?

(look out for that beer can!)

We knew we weren’t Commies either

because, for one thing, Communists didn’t take acid,

which was pretty much our job along with faking

the Southern accent of local winos

(Midtown at that time was very much poor-white),

so yeah we got high, we paraded,

we crashed,

we woke up groggy and started it all again . . .

taking to these city blocks when our cat-box stinky rooms

became suffocating, when the need for milk or bread or papers

propelled us out into danger, onto the Strip

where we exposed ourselves for hassles

and sometimes violence, not to mention the occasional

arrests for “violation of pedestrian duties”

if we so much as put one foot off the curb while selling the Bird.

Then came Jail. Where you sat . . . until somebody

tracked down Alley Pat Patrick, the one Decatur Street

bondsman who bailed out protestors and hippies.

 

 

For spiritual guidance we had two choices –

Mother David of the Catacombs with his pagan,

maternalistic embrace of all mixed-up hippie waifs . . .

Mother David, queer of course,

but in those pre-gaydar days he was simply

the matriarch of  our hard-core 14th street scene.

Meanwhile . . .  over on 10th St. was Jesus and Bruce Donneley

with his suburb-friendly 12th Gate coffee house –

paisley evangelicals offering tea, cider, the blues,

and an upstairs poster shop which was a great place

to hit on weekend hippie-chicks

who might possibly agree to come check out

your collection of black-light posters.

 

Midway between the Catacombs and the 12th Gate

was Henry and Sue Bass’s Workshop in Non-Violence,

the politics of peace working hard to sprout

in this backwater of a great confused country torn by war,

Henry and Sue, who tried to guide us toward activism,

who helped find us a room at 174 13th Street –

home to an unlikely collective of street-theatre types,

SCLC workers and fellow freaks who lived

to stick their heads between Iron Butterfly speakers

in the basement of that craftsman house

where politicos and lotus-eaters had been thrown together

by necessity . . .  unlike Cambridge and Berkeley where

activists and hippies kept their distance  . . . what was

not an option in Atlanta at that time.

So some of us who had grown up in Georgia were now

breaking bread each night with the very people

our fathers had called, Outside Agitators! –

horn-rimmed civil-rights workers like Jim Gehres

who came south from Oberlin College to register voters,

but who instead became Dr. King’s chauffer

because the great man felt safe with Jim.

And really, we shouldn’t have given Jim that acid . . .

but we did, we did

 

(what rendered him incapable of driving the next day),

and we got into trouble with some SCLC types

who said that we had become

part of the problem not part of the solution

(the unkindest cut of all).

But, No, it hadn’t been our fault – the real problem was

those orange double domes cut with truck-stop speed

that were out on the Strip – That was what had messed

us up so bad, That was what had kept

our tribe of wannabe Buddhists

wandering the early morning Atlanta streets

like Sadhus, Indian holy men with no home,

only a vision, and yeah,

we had a vision all right,

but after six hours we just wanted our vision gone . . .

enough already with the oneness thing!

And as we walked the side streets of the Strip that night,

all we could see was concrete, a paved-over planet,

humankind’s connection to the Earth cut off

by aggregate, same as our mental pathways were cut off.

Around 2 am we saw a redneck drag queen hailing a cab,

her accent revealing her Appalachian roots,

Y’all are some fucked-up flower-children.

Y’all’s eyeballs are fixing to pop!

And when a Blue and Grey cab stopped,

we saw that the taxi was being driven

by a coyote in a sports shirt, so we started running,

running down 12th Street into the park,

but it was scary there, too full of cop cars

and cruising high school jocks looking to gay-bash.

Yet we so needed some neutral dirt,

a place we could root our butts to

and allow this terrible energy to go back to ground . . .

we walked deeper into the city night to a corner

on Juniper with grass, bushes, a place to sit,

and as dawn brought up its stage lights we saw

we’d grouped around a Georgia historical marker,

James Andrews –

(some of us could now read)

for it was on or near this spot in June 1862

that he and five others were hung

by the neck until dead (and we thought we had troubles) –

Andrews Raiders . . . the Great Locomotive Chase . .

the Congressional Medal of Honor created

for the men marched here,

likely to muffled drumbeats,

and the scaffolding – it must have been on that little rise,

its trap door waiting . . . .waiting to spring,

and when it sprang what were the noises . . .

squeaks then crowd gasps, that’s how it goes isn’t it,

what was much worse than our little

chemically-induced spiritual crisis.

Gradually it became fully light.

People were going to work in cars.

It had made sense that we were All One a few hours ago.

But now it didn’t.

We were tired. We were confused.

We so wanted to come down.

Rupert Fike’s poems and short fiction have appeared in Rosebud (Pushcart nominee), The Georgetown Review, Snake Nation Review (winner 2006 single poem competition), The Atlanta Review (forthcoming), Natural Bridge, FutureCycle, Borderlands, storySouth, The Cumberland Poetry Review, and others. A poem of his has been inscribed in a downtown Atlanta plaza, and his non-fiction work, Voices From The Farm, accounts of life on a spiritual community in the 1970s, is now available in paperback. 

Hassles

history, Lifestyles

Great Speckled Bird  June 22, 1970 Vol3#25pg2

There may still be a few folks around who believe that the cops in the hip community are our friends who are trying as best they can to protect us. If you still believe that, look carefully at what happened this week- end.

 On Friday night a group of kids had a good vibes gathering in the park. Some swam in the lake, others played drums. The gathering continued late into the night. Harkey Klinefelter, the “street minister” and Clarence Green the Mayor’s liaison man to hips, left at 3:30 a.m. About 4:30 a cop car came into the park, called for assistance, and began busting people. Eight freaks were busted for “creating a turmoil” and “use of profane language.”

 

Monday morning four of the eight showed up in Municipal Court. Two testified that they were leaving the park when a patrol car pulled up. They explained that they were on their way home. Cool. Then a few minutes later they were busted. Municipal Court Judge R. E. Jones found all four guilty and told them, “Y’all get this out of your system in the daytime.”

 

On Saturday night the management of Tom Jones’ Fish and Chips on the strip decided to give away free watermelon and stay open all night because of the kids in town for the Cosmic Carnival. A crowd of kids gathered inside the store and in front of it having a good time.

 

About 1:00 am Officer Snowden arrested High Pocket’s brother, Charley, for dancing in the store. That’s right — dancing. Last week the Fish & Chips folks asked for and received a permit for dancing. The permit itself hadn’t come in she mail yet, but the store manager had posted the minutes of the Police Alder- manic Committee showing the request on the wall next to the business license. When Charley was arrested manager John Wynn called the owner of the store Mr. Crenshaw. Crenshaw came and talked to Sgt. Bell who was in charge of the precinct station.

 

Bell refused to look at the minutes of the meeting posted on the wall. Although Charley was in jail, things seemed to have quieted down so Crenshaw went back home.

 

About 3:00 a.m. Snowden came back in with a number of cops and said that anyone dancing would be arrested. It looked like the shit was about to hit the fan so Wynn called Crenshaw again. Crenshaw came and was told to go to the precinct station to talk to Bell. The cops left but were back in ten minutes with a paddy wagon. Bongo was arrested. Charley who had just returned from the jail was arrested again. The store’s assistant manager, George Jones, was arrested in front where he had been picking up litter. Manager Wynn was arrested in the doorway of his store. A customer was arrested at the counter where he was buying a coke.. All the kids in front of the store were behind the line police had previously respected as the part of the side- walk kids could safely stand behind. In all, 21 arrests were made for loitering at 3:30 am on a deserted side- walk devoid of anyone who’s passage on the sidewalk could have possibly been blocked by the kids. One excuse of the cops was that the door to the store was blocked. No complaint was made by the management of Fish & Chips—on the contrary they were arrested.

 

The men were piled into one wagon, women in another. The door on the men’s wagon was shut and locked. Officer J.E. Witcher, badge number 2036, came up to the back window of the wagon and said, “Hey you motherfuckers, we’re going to really screw you.” He held up an aerosol can. Someone in the wagon said, “Is that a can of mace?” “No”, he replied, “I’ve got a nine foot dick full of piss,” and he emptied the entire can of mace into the wagon. The night before, the community patrol had complained to the precinct station that 2036 was harassing kids on the street. Capt. Baugh, head of the precinct, says that 2036 was assigned to paddy wagon duty in South Atlanta Saturday night. He promises an “investigation”. You bet!

 

In court Monday, Fish & Chips attorney, Stanley Nylen, defended all those arrested. The cops testified that they warned the kids that they would be arrested if they didn’t move. All the defendants agree that no such warning was given. One cop was asked by Nylen if he knew whether mace was used or not. He said he didn’t, that he had only heard some of the kids claim it had been sprayed. Those in the wagon remember that cop asking them as he leaned into the wagon at the precinct station to write the tickets, “What’s this that’s making my eyes water.”

 

Lunch time approached and only store manager Wynn had been able to testify for the defense. Judge Jones said that if all the defendants were going to testify he would postpone the case until the next day. With 21 people involved and knowing what the verdict would be anyway. Attorney Nylen felt he could not wait. Jones declared a recess to talk with Nylen and the cops. In recess Jones talked to the cops who said that Wynn and Jones had encouraged the kids in the store. In court they had said that they didn’t know Wynn and Jones were store employees. More lies. Jones came back and found everybody guilty. He suspended the fine of all except Wynn, Jones, Bongo, High Pockets (who’s black), Charley, and Fang. Fang was charged with four offenses. The cops tried to blame the whole thing on Fang, who protested the arrests. Nylen and the Fish & Chips people are appealing the convictions of Wynn, Jones and Fang.

 

According to Crenshaw, the Fish & Chips has been harassed by the police since it opened April 2. At various times of the day four or five cops will come in and hang around. There has never been trouble at the Fish & Chips, and they’ve never had to call the cops. Crenshaw charges the police with conspiring to put him out of business. At a press conference Tuesday, Crenshaw announced that he is filing suit against the city for interfering with his right to operate a business. Wynn and Jones intend to file criminal charges against Witcher for the assault with the mace.

 

 

 

Sunday night I was in the Fish & Chips talking With Bongo about the previous night’s big bust. After a while I left. A little later a girl came up to Bongo and said that five cops had been hassling her with talk like, “Where did you get those clothes?” and “Why don’t you wear a bra?” Bongo picked up his pad and pencil and said, “Let’s go get their badge numbers.” They first found Officer W. D. Osborne, who was standing in front of the Metro skin flick. Bongo went over and wrote down the badge number. Bongo said, “It’s people like you, brother, who give us trouble down here. I’ve got a press conference tomorrow, and I’d like to tell them about this and tell Mr. Green.” Gilbert Hinson, owner of the skin flick and head of the 10th Street Businessmen’s Association, was out front and he demanded that Bongo get off his private sidewalk property. Bongo left and went to take another cop’s badge number. Osborne came up and said very softly, “Don’t let me catch you off the strip.” Bongo, who has a way of remaining cooled out, said, “Did you hear that, people? He told me, ‘Don’t let me catch you off the strip.” Then Osborne motioned for Bongo to come over to him. That brought Bongo over the property line of the skin flick Henson shouted, “Arrest him for creating a turmoil.” Osborne grabbed Bongo and took him away through the theater. As they left Bongo shouted, “They’re arresting me for carrying a concealed weapon and it’s only a Boy Scout knife.” Apparently the cops found that the Scout knife was too short to be covered by that ordinance so they charged him with Hinson’s “creating turmoil.” At the jail. Bongo paid a collateral bond and was out of jail but still in the station. A call came saying “Hold Jenkins (Bongo) for additional charge; ” The additional charge was “criminal defamation, a state charge and Bongo spent Sunday night and Monday in jail.

 

In court Bongo told his story of what had happened. Father Gregory Santos of the runaway program, who was with Bongo, testified and corroborated his story. But the cops and Hinson testified that Bongo had accused Osborne of making improper remarks to a woman and had threatened him with, “We have ways of taking care of people like you.” The judge, Jones again, ignored the testimony of Santos and that of Bongo. Accusing Bongo of “attempting to intimidate, the officer and threatening him,” Jones found him guilty on the turmoil charge and bound him over to state court on the defamation charge. Jones said that Bongo should have made a complaint about the cop to the police and the city instead of exposing the cop to “hate and ridicule.” Attorney Al Horn pointed out that that was precisely what Bongo was trying to do in getting the badge numbers, but Jones would not listen.

 

Three harassment busts, three sets of convictions in municipal court where simple justice is never found. Cop 2036 will at most be simply suspended from the force for a few days and I’ll lay bets even that won’t happen.

 

Nobody’s talking peace and love on the strip anymore. No one should. Instead kids are trying to figure out ways to protect themselves from the cops. Apparently somebody began on Friday night. According to rumors on the strip (I was unable to locate any eyewitnesses), a couple of guys were stopped for a grass bust. Apparently one shouted to some passersby, “Hey, can’t you help a brother?” Some did and in the next few minutes one cop was knocked out and the other cop had shot in the leg a guy who was crossing the street. One story says that the cop was knocked out when he hit his head trying to tackle somebody. At any rate, it seems that some freaks helped their brothers resist an illegitimate arrest. Expect more.

 —gene guerrero, jr.

 

Julie

Lifestyles

Hi,

What a great thing you are doing! I love it.

When did I first come to Atlanta? March 1970.

What brought me to Atlanta? My sister. I had run away from boarding school. My sister came to DC and found me, and I went to Atlanta to live with her.

When did I first visit the strip?  March 1970. It was such an experience. I remember very clearly the first time I walked down the strip. I felt like I was home.

My best experience? The free concerts in the park. It was always such a beautiful day when the bands played. So many people. My best experience of all was an acid trip in the park that I shared with my sister. We sat by the water for hours…in the gazebo.  My sister died in an auto accident a few years ago. I felt compelled to return to Atlanta and visit the park. I sat in exactly the same place we had been during that trip and remembered her.

Worst experience?  When the police came down the strip and started arresting people for “loitering.” They beat people. I was arrested twice, once for loitering and once for jay-walking.  Then the police cleared out Piedmont Park. It became a lonely, sad place.

What did I learn? I don’t know, really. It was a defining time in my life. I thought it would go on forever. I guess I learned that we can never really have that time back again…though I would give anything if we could. I sort of feel like a fish out of water now.

Julie