Nostalgia for the Future
These were the streets of my misspent youth. Dirty streets still vibrant with the remnants of the counter culture 30 years gone past. Despite the attempts of disco or Reganomics to smother it in its counter culture retirement home – the vestiges remained. At least the did in the 90’s.
My sophomore year in high school we took a school sponsored trip to Alcatraz. There were two options for travel:
- You could ride the school bus with 60 other kids you probably didn’t get along with and several teachers who were allergic to fun.
- You could figure out a ride with a registered parent.
Most of my friends were degenerates like me so we all pooled together with the one mom who would not only make the trip fun; but could also get past all of the other parents. Shaylin’s mom assured all of the parents – but especially my military folks – that once the the school trip stuff was done we were going to spend the afternoon / evening looking at all of the Christmas Decorations in the Business and Financial Districts. Instead we ditched the good kids and spent the evening in The Haight.
This was my first truly free trip to The City. It changed my perception of what this place is / was. Hippie kids on the street – a little older and a little dirtier than me – offered to sell me “kind buds” and shrooms. I bought a necklace off of one of them that was nothing but a quarter ensnared in copper wire suspended on a hemp rope. I wore it almost everyday until it disintegrated.
That trip fundamentally changed teenage me. I saw the world in a different light. I altered my habits. I put away certain childish aspects of who I had been.
After that, whenever we got the balls to ditch school we went to The City.
The minute you got close enough you switched the radio over to Live 105 because it would be playing the newest, the weirdest, the most esoteric music that wouldn’t hit the local suburban station for another six months; if at all. The billboards all announced new movies, new albums, touring attractions at all of the local venues. Coming from the milquetoast hinterlands of the suburbs San Francisco felt like the entry point for all cultural relevance on the West Coast at that time.
None of you reading this will believe me; but San Francisco used to be cheap. It was the land of artists and musicians, of blue collared ship builders and the military. It was a place that you could get lost in the zeitgeist and make a living being an esoteric weirdo. Or you could raise a family on a single income being a fire fighter or a cop. It was a weird place, at a weird time, where you could be the weirdest weirdo that you ever wanted to be.
There’s a lot of cities in the US that started like this. Cultural centers that were made interesting by the weird, the artsy and the poor.
– San Francisco
– Seattle
– Austin
– Madison
The environment that made these places icons eventually, as always, attracted the monied class. Drawn by the idiosyncrasies that made them unique they wanted to live amongst the weirdness; but in a safe, prophylactic way. To the point that they eventually drove a lot of what made them great, out. Anthony Bourdain called it “The Hug of Death”. He would show the world a bright spot, hidden from the view of the public – and then the world would show up and love the shit out of it in the worst possible way.
The San Francisco that I love is still there. It’s not as obvious as it once was. The dirty hippie kids aren’t offering to sell me “kind buds” any more because there’s three legal dispensaries in eye sight. Amoeba Music is still there; but the dirty McDonald’s at the end of Haight (one of the few places I could afford to eat back then) has been replaced with high rise luxury condos. Across the street? A Whole Foods. Sure signs of the gentrification apocalypse wave currently washing over the city.
Those advertisements for bands and movies? Nothing but advertisements for the latest tech incubators who appear bent on economic and societal collapse.
As we get older we tend to lament the nostalgic memories of the past; but I also lament the future me’s for the misadventures they might not get to have. I hope somewhere out there a new weird city is on the rise, still under the radar, curating its own fascinating little world.
And I really hope the future weirdos find it before private equity does.
