I think it was better…in comparison to what came before. Whereas now is worse, compared to what came before.
Otherwise, then compared to now… it’s a big menu, take yer choice.
lennie is right.
/thread.
LOL
Well ya could turn a 5 year old loose at 7AM and just say be back fer lunch
You could leave your doors unlocked - I am sure you still can where you live and I still do where I live
There was order in the schools
I dunno, there was wars and all that, but somehow the air was sweeter and things slower and people had better manners.
How do you explain what things were like 60 years ago unless yer a poet or an accomplished writer -
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I think you did a fine job. Thank you.
I always think of those times as being less confused and chaotic. People seemed to know their roles and responsibilities.
You know Duke, I think we can still send the kids out and tell them to be home for supper but we don’t because we know what could happen out there and we don’t want to be those parents on the news crying our eyes out because our kid fell into a river or hit by a car or abducted or killed. We’re scared shitless because every single day, we turn on our little boxes and see terrifying shit.
Used to get together for cards or some silly board game - fight over ball fields that go totally unused now.
now everyone’s face is stuck in a phone - glad I don’t have one
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Yeah kids don’t go outside as much anymore.
Still searching…here’s one piece.
ALBION HALL
falls
the ghost
of Harry Bridges
Eric Hoffer
countless long shore men
ship scalers…truck drivers
street sweepers egg beaters
labor and the old
wobblees with a picture of Eugene Debs on
the wall
is now
a 19 million dollar condo
for some sleazy
smack face…tech bubble boy
who leaves empty wine bottles
week ends in Deloris Park, as
a sign of his contempt for
working class hero s who built that
city
(not rock and roll or drugs or Union ST pick up joints)
no a
sad a day
as when the hippies dragged coffins up
Haight St and declared the death of HIP
now
it is the death of dirty hands
grease stained over alls
n some smug fuck
sits on his Ikea chair an calls him self
an Icon of progress
flame throwers pitchforks and
baseball bats
good by San Francisco you were
once cool
now
disgusting policy
hidden back room
sell offs offs
of history blood sweat and tears
no body how ever can
replace the view
Pacific…n Broadway
early in the day
(Dominic Albanese)
and another --
1215 Fell St SF California
yea the old saw
if walls could talk
well tell ya what
they can't I can
Torelli Import Auto
"the head mechanics"
rock stars, dope dealers, ordinary DMV clerks
a host of SF in the mid 60s
O man from 64 Ferrari to clapped out
rat mobiles if it could get
up the ramp
we would fix it
Built some really fast
sleeper VWs spick and span 356 Porches
Aston Martin, Dual Giha, MGs Austin Healey, the
bunch of em
rip snort belch fire
or just get ya to work on time
Nick owned the place
but we ran it
he was a minor Haight Ashbury
legend. The Family Dog
The Electric Light Show
all manner of SF artistic collected
tuned up tore up and left with
a nice doobie in the ash tray
yea I can tell ya
it was hand shake
pay me now or pay me later
A few of the really good poster
artists were starving then
and Nick got some original art
the price of it today is in the outer edge
o well we got a good living
we had so much good dope
and easy women
it all was great
till the "Death Of Hip"
the drugs were no longer
recreational but lethal
Nick closed the place
and opened a Junk Yard
Memory of it
now
is nostalgia
not regret
ASSIGNED A TASK
Alter history…or at
least say what really took
place
not what news shoved in yr face
O dear
easy start…1968…Mazood n Hamdid n some other
guy from Iran
would come up da garage
with blocks of killer hash
two coughs n you off in dreamland
one of em had this old Peugeot
the other two had MGs…easy swaps
among music stars gangsters n doctors
half of half off for tips n doobies
Me Monk n Mike run to da
little donnaker in da corner
puff a few…Alfredo master mechanic
used to tease us bout too much Corene in da pool
tinker n toil…play grab ass with Scotty n Luarel
couple sweet hippies who kept da books
Nick owned the joint…but had bout
80 other scams afoot
Torelli Import Auto…Fell+Diversionary streets
long ago…now…Big Roger in his motor cave
a pair of escaped dwarfs from Hungary worked at night
that’s a whole other poem
any way…one supply run fell way short
Iran hung one of em…other two beet feet for Mexico
as up on Haight st…all flower wilted empty beer cans
n speed…showed up Super Spade got stabbed
all those free concerts started costing real ticket loot
few guys got lost in da toot
as if it were indeed the fall of the unholy counter empire
all other factors…insane war…more more more
became
this rally cry…makes me so sad I could die
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We used to run around the streets and the fields and streams playing some kind of tag game with made up rules. My kids and their friends created an elaborate game of tag that was awesome. They did it in teams for safety. But honestly, people I know with little kids now have their kids on an ipad at age 1 and 1/2.
I feel exactly the same way about my lost San Francisco. I fucking loved that city. And even my lost Los Angeles. Though it’s not quite as bad here, nor did I ever love this city as much.
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I’ve seen very little of either of them, but SF had so much more character in its history…London, Bierce, Hearst, and all. I guess it was cool for a while in maybe the early sixties, but by the time it got to be in vogue the party was already over.
I wouldn’t say it was really in vogue in 78, 79, 80, 81. It was still a gem of a city, there were still artists living in loft spaces south of Market, dancers and poets and musicians, all able to survive without being rich. That is ALL gone now. ALL of it. Google has forced them out of the city. 8k for a little apartment where I once hung out with my Art Institute pals.
SF had much more character in many ways than LA ever did, so there isn’t as much to grieve with the gentrification of this place. Still, the tech industry has moved down here, and they’re destroying whatever good they can.
When I hike or go to restaurants or wherever one overhears conversations, I hear these 20-somethings talking about monetizing, profit ratios, property values, optimizing traffic on their web sites, whether or not their romantic interest is sufficiently success oriented. They’re intense conversations. When I hung around with my friends at that age, our intense conversations were about art, philosophy, literature, music, mad love.
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There is a theory i have heard giving Jack Kerouac and his magnum opus On The Road credit for being one of the seminal pieces of the zeitgeist of the 60’s. (Coincidentally On The Roads maman Saint Dean Moriarty was the designated driver for Ken Kesey’s bus Further (see, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test etc)
I had a professor who wanted to get into a WayBack Machine and go back to live in the world of On The Road. Nothing had meaning to him except that period, that small group of people.
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I predict it will be “Summer of Thugs.” lmao
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Tag - when is the last time kids played tag
1 and 1/2 - they will regret that
anyway imagine folks staring at their phones when something (sunspots or sich - not war) brings the net down fer a long stretch
Things used to be more organic in the good old days, mainly a pre-franchise, pre-mall era. Also, places like SFO were not dominated by companies like google.
I used to go to a photography school in Manhattan called The New York Institute Of Photography. Back in the day it was a brick and mortar school located around 34th street. We had a blast, many good friends; we would eat and roam the city together. Good times.
Today I think that it just some online school for improving digital skills.
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@LittleRambo1 … you may know that the legendary, iconic photographers of the rock scene in the sixties were Herb Greene and Jim Marshall. Check out Marshall’s page on Facebook. Jim Marshall Photography LLC - Home | Facebook
He was notoriously a Leica guy, who went thru maybe twenty cameras during his career. Somewhere on the page is info about the new super whoopie new limited Leica Jim Marshall model which will only be available from Leitz dealers in the US.
Just mentioning it in case you win the lottery or something.
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Folks will rue the day of digital
used to take real pics and put them in an album and have them fer 300 years
most future gens will never see the digital pics stored wherever
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