San Fran '60s: San Francisco and the Birth of the Hippies

 

"San Fran '60s"

 

San Francisco in the Sixties, the Summer of
Love, the birth of the hippies, experience it for yourself in "San Fran '60s" and its sequel "More San Fran '60s,"
collections of autobiographical short stories. San Francisco in the Sixties was
the epicenter of the Counter Culture, the biggest cultural transformation of
the second half of the Twentieth Century. Of course, it has had its memoirs and
histories, but this is the only time a participant has used the devices of
literary fiction to put you there, living it.

           

"San Fran '60s" is darker, edgier, and more intimate than
anything on the subject before. In addition to the requisite sex, drugs, and
rock 'n roll, there is murder, madness, and God. One of the murders officially
ended the Summer of Love. William Burroughs and Janis Joplin make an
appearance, as does Jim Morrison in "More San Fran '60s." LSD and free love,
Haight-Ashbury and the Hell's Angels, the Hip and the Straight, it's all in
these stories.

 

And it all really happened. The stories are
based on author M.W. Jacobs' journals and experiences and there is less
invention than in most memoirs. He has lived in and around San Francisco since
1965 and presents myself, friends, and acquaintances as prime specimens. In the
Sixties and Seventies, he was a free lance journalist, among other things.

           

The first story, "The
Street," is a present-tense, stream-of-expanded-consciousness stroll the length
of Haight Street at the height of the Summer of Love. In "Unlivable With," a
college love affair beset by a outraged husband and a predatory junky
culminates in a night of sex on LSD. In "Junkie Love," there's a legendary
junkie burn artist and armed robbery between dealers, and it all culminates in
a meeting with William Burroughs. In "Gilroy," three dealers are driving from
San Francisco to LA in the middle of the night on LSD. They must contend with
rednecks at a truck stop as well as demons of their own that emerge in their
hurtling steal cage. "Summer of '66" follows four roommates and assorted
crashers during the all important gestational summer before the Summer of Love.

 

The stories range in tone from comic to
harrowing to lyrical. All are interconnected but each is self-contained so they
can be read in any order. These collections could be thought of as a fractured
novel in which even the narrative structure expresses that era.

 

Now read them and experience it for
yourself.