Summer of Love at 40

Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the commonwealth club of California. I am Peter Finch, KFOG Radio News Director here in San Francisco. It is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished speakers for our program celebrating "The Summer of Love at 40: The Roots of a Counter-Culture". First step Dr. David E. Smith Executive Medical Director of the Prometa Center for addiction and founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. We also have with us this evening Wes "Scoop" Nisker Author, Radio Commentator and former News Director of the well the Jive 95 KSAN radio back in the day. Also on our panel this evening Paul Krassner, writer and founder of The Realist magazine. Last but not least and we will have to check the commonwealth archives to see if he is the first panel to be resplendent in tie die head to toe. Activist clown and former frozen desert Wavy Gravy. In the summer of 1967, kids from all over the country converged on San Francisco and laid the foundation for a socio political legacy, 40 years later decisions made during the summer of love continued to have an impact on our lives, music, drugs and politics was the theme and it all converged on the corner of Haight Ashbury right here in San Francisco, California. Tonight we will take a look back through the haze at The Summer of Love and please one more time welcome all our panelists Dr. David E. Smith, "Scoop" Nisker, Paul Krassner, and Wavy Gravy. And I want to begin by having each of you tell us what you were doing in the summer of 67. I am presuming that you were all here. I am not sure though, I know that "Scoop" Nisker has written that he came to San Francisco to be a bohemian, got here late and was assigned to the hippies. So "Scoop" may be on that node, may be I will begin with you. Where did the summer I know you attended the Monterey pop festival. I know that much. That was my introduction to San Francisco, California, Hippies I mean not actually Hippies I was living in Minneapolis and hanging out with a small group of, people who are smoking pot and being politically active and you know, generally making or raising some trouble and a friend of mine ran a magazine called "Twin Beat" rock and roll magazine, he got invited to cover the Monterey pop festival and he said you want to go and so we all piled into a old Buick and headed for Monterey and we got here and it was like heaven, like we had finally found our people, our home, like the promised land. And I remember going to the Monterey pop festival and there was a - may be a 20 foot high Buddha at the entrance. And people were handing out corsages orchids to everyone who came. They had shipped all these orchids in from Hawaiian. And then after the pop festival I went to the Haight Ashbury and I never looked back. Well, I looked back but you know, I didn't go back. Now out of the corner of my eye when I mention I presume you were all here for The Summer of love - Wavy Gravy, I may have seen you, shake your head no where you still Hue at the time or were you Wavy by then. I was Hue I did not become Wavy Gravy till the fall of 69, I got that name from B.B.King at the Texas Pop Festival which is you Wavy Gravy yes sir. And he lead me up against his amplifier and took out Lucille and from out of the other side came Johnny Winter, and they played till sunrise and it was everybody's reward for putting on their pants. Paul Krassner, summer of 67, and I guess this question is both physical and metaphysical for all of you. Where were you at that time? I was at the expo in Montreal, had been invited to speak at the youth pavilion and I was being interviewed by the CBC. And a friend had given me a capsule of LSD which had been distributed by the mafia so he wanted me to test it and so I took it right before the interview on CBC and this was in the middle of Vietnam war and so I said in the middle of interview that I would like to burn my draft card now and the guy got all excited, interviewed me because oh, we have a scoop, not you - or your flavor for that matter... And so I never gave a straight line to a psychedelic relic. And temple of accumulated error. And so I, so I made the point that you know people would object to this but it is just a piece of card board and they were actual children being burned to death, by Napalm on the other side of the globe, and so you had to be - remember the difference between symbols and flesh. So I just tried to give it a context and they have marine guard in the American pavilion where I was being interviewed who had gone to protocol school and but he wasn't used to - they didn't teach me about some body taking acid during an interview, so he called the captain and said he burned his draft card sir, and I said no here is my draft card, because I have been speaking at a lot of campuses at the time and had a lot of Photostats made so that I, and so I - so the lieutenant said "sir I saw him, I saw him I saw him burn his card I saw him" I said no, no that was a Photostat and so the Captain said well you know "a Photostat, it's against the law to make a copy of your draft card", I said yeah but I burnt the evidence. And any way just to cut to the end of that I called my friend and told to him that although I disapprove of the mafia's methods and their goals, they did distribute some pretty powerful acids. When I was in Sunland California my wife and I have moved away from the whole scene - the dead, the acid test all that stuff here and leaving out bucolic existence in this little tiny cabin when we got the call that they were doing a photo shoot for a life magazine of psychedelic and the prank has chosen the dead one to just come in and pose with them. So we could, we just drop it in and there we all were posing for a cover of life magazine and ken babes steals the bus to join Kisi was on the lamb in Mexico. So my wife and I suddenly have 47 house guests, the land lord comes by and say you cant have 50 people living in one room you are evicted. And in hour and a half later this is kitchen synchronicity at work Paul, but Paul Sue, a neighbor come by "all soul up on the mountain ahead of the stroke they need some body to slop them hogs, and so we were given a mountain top rent free if we would take care of 60 hogs the size of dinosaurs and one of which we later ran for president she was the first female black and white candidate, we broke a lot of ground with the pig yeah. That was Wavy Gravy. Dr David E. Smith, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and it wasn't a case of you seeking out the summer of love in San Francisco as much as the summer of love came to you as I understand that you had inherited a home right there in the neighborhood correct? Yes, I have a very different back ground than these gentlemen. For the radio audience you see, all around he is the only wearing a tie this evening. But it is it is a fillmore psychedelic tie. But I have lived in Haight Ashbury since 1961. I started medical school and interacted and admired these gentlemen during that period of time I wish they would have recorded the back stage with all those stories that were flying around but I was doing drug research that UC San Francisco I was the local LSD expert and I was taking LSD in white mice and then I would walk home at night and I was also running alcohalic screening unit in San Francisco. So I was there the fact that age 68, father, four, grandfather three, I can remember 67 better than I can remember yesterday. It was an incredible time and what my recollections were that, there was this 100s of 1000s of kids coming in and I think one of the things that the audience must recognize is the Haight Ashbury had a rich history way before "The Summer of Love". I think that's lost in all of this recent expo say the upper Haight Ashbury was very politically active they had the - party people Terrence Holloman and his father were there. The late American labor movement started there with Harry Bridges. And my - I am so different in the back ground of these gentlemen because I didn't have one shred of political activism in my background. I was a physician, scientist, aimed for academic medicine. But I got my education in Haight Ashbury because I would come home and there was Terrence Holloman from San Francisco State talking about Mississippi freedom - register for voting you know, with Paul and "Scoop" and Wavy, they knew all about that I didn't. My grandparents were farm workers from Oklahoma. It's the farthest thing in my mind for this political activism. But I learnt about segregated health care, that's where I got the idea that coining the term "health care is a right, not a privilege," which I coined just starting of the Haight Ashbury medical Clinic. It is an incredibly rich and fertile time, but I remember coming home and probably Wavy was there. When you talk with Wavy, he talks, you listen and so but it was like this human being and everybody was tripping and there was Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg and then there was everybody is passing the electric acid cool aid test to - put LSD and cool it. And I remember I was the one that said - this is a very powerful drug and you ought to be careful. Well everybody is putting in the cool aid and there was a guy in the back having a death rebirth experience so I am going I went something is going on here you know. It was a totally mind blowing experience. And I think the cultural history is how it's impacted on the main stream where society is been lost. The first light show I ever saw was a simulated LSD experience by Dick Ham, just outside the Haight Ashbury Bill Ham yeah. I remember walking down there and there is an old time as I remember that that was before all of this bench stream things and just it was incredible. And that simulated the light shows with Bill Graham is the one who did all the benefits for us and I went to the city and said all these Hippies are coming, they don't have health care and I said "well we can't start a clinic" because they will just stay. And we don't want them to stay. And then I had learnt from Terrence Holloman that that's not the right thing to do after spiritual experience I had so they said but if you start a private doctor's office, you can call anything you want. So 558 Clayton Street was the David E. Smith MD and associates doing business at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic. And the associates were some of the strangest associates you have ever seen in your life and that was the beginning, we had about a month's survival time and Bill Graham who I think, history has not given him a fair shake either he had a heart of gold, if you were on his side, he organized all our benefits, he is the one that got Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater, Grateful Dead. He is the one that basically did the benefits, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar he is the one that did the benefits to yeah Chet Holmes, he is right yeah well Avalon and those things the that was the beginning of the free clinic movement that's now spread nation wide over 2000 free clinics nation wide. That was the beginnings of the field of addiction medicine. And I just want to make sure that the social action out of the Haight doesn't get lost when we are talking about the you know of cultural aspects and the incredible things went on there. Very good. You are listening to the commonwealth club of California radio program, we are talking tonight with Dr. David E. Smith, "Scoop" Nisker, Paul Krassner, and Wavy Gravy celebrating "The Summer of Love at 40: The Roots of a Counter-Culture". And I can see already we are going to have trouble cramping all these great stories into one hour. Its almost like that we should make this like wood stock and stretch it out for three days and rain can fall from the ceiling, you can bring in but Keep off the towers. Right. And be sure not to ingest the brown antacid. Will Billy meet Emily at the information. I am, you know we live at a time these days when parents and their kids are are likely to catch a rolling stone concert together, you know, 67 it was a very different time and you were all you know by the time 67 rolled around you were all adults. But for those of you whose parents were still around at that time what did they make of you and and what was happening and how did they handle it, whoever wants to address, they can. I remember I used to go to, was it the - studio city with my wife was shooting Star Trek and I had been standing there in a suit believe it or not usually reserved for a Halloween and I had a picture of a Napalm child and a body count and people would spit on me. They would just spit on me and I would go on and scrape the spit off and they will be back the next day and do it again and I remember that. And I remember towards the end of things what was cranking down when I was in Washington Dc, the MC the impeachment of Richard Nixon and there were cub scouts doing the lets sing dick and I was gone to assassinate Nixon actually with a bic pen they had a ad on TV where they will take a bic pen and shoot it through a board and write with it and I will say eat bic dick it is mightier than the sword. But Ram Das talked to me out of his, you most love Nixon and so this was a challenge and I got this Nixon mask this light up dick head and I would smear a tiger balm on Nixon's third eye is like hippy wigs and Nixon's third eye and oh Dick Dick Dick and I started to laugh at Nixon and it made it possible for me to press on because laughter is like the valve on the pressure cooker of life and either you laugh at this stuff you are gone to end up with your brains and your beans on the ceiling so you are there. Yeah. Well and the follow up I guess getting back to the question where your parents, so "Scoop" I will ask you - your folks, where they still back in Nebraska at the time? They were and no matter what I was doing all they would talk about was my hair, you know of course it would - I once tell my mother you know mom I do smoke marijuana she didn't even - she didn't respond at all, she just said, when you are going to get your hair cut when are you going to get, your hair you look so strange with that, had a Jew fro we call them you know and I could still have one if I want. I try to be honest with my parents, and I told them I had just taken LSD for the first time and she was very concerned she said that that it could lead to marijuana and she was right. I have got all these great questions but we are getting questions from the audience. Let me just add one thing, I have a different different perspective, its not in conflict but my parents died when I was young, I grew up alone my parents died in the 50s and that's how I ended up inheriting the money to buy the house, so I had no family, I had no parents, I had no brothers or sisters and I think one of the reasons I identified with the Haight is they became like my family. So I didn't have parents to criticize me because they were dead. And I recall my my professors of medicine when I started at Haight Ashbury clinic said David where did you go wrong, you were such a promising young medical student. So I felt osterisized by the medical profession, now I am honored at 68 then I was ostracized and these gentlemen I remember "Scoop" Nisker and Kasan they would have - I don't remember that "Scoop" you have the musicians down there and they play the concerts and they had benefits for us I forget lot of time we cant remember the guy's name but he would, would go over the air, the musicians were like there wasn't a separation like there is now in other words they felt, we all felt part of this movement and I felt part of it and it's probably why was so crushed when things started going wrong because this became my family. And these gentlemen accepted me, accepted all the people like me, and I had a role there if you saw the Pulp Fiction, Harvey Kietel film, I was the cleaner. In other words, they would have the parties or be blood and brains all over the place, they would call me and to clean them up. And we took care of the, all the kids at the concerts Rock Madison, Glen Rudnick, Bob Astute and all other people. So we were the ones that took care of the casualties but again Chet holms, and Bill Graham said we have to take care of our own. That was a very different spirit then. We got to take care of our own and we were the ones that took care of them, so I felt a real bond to them as this huge extended fame and being part of this movement. Rock Madison is still rocking you know still rocking. Well, and also Dr. Smith you know there were a lot you know, there was a lot of tragedy there in turn be at you know, related to drugs or whatever, but also in a moment of levity back in the green room, the story about the different names, could you share that with us? Well they were talking about I think Paul was Rumpleforeskin on this and so I said "well you know when they first came to the clinic in 67, the guy would come in and he had had a good acid trip and he would be you know, like moon beam, or white rabbit and then he will have a bad acid trip the next day and it would be Harvey Schwartz from Cleveland. And he said please call yourself the same thing everyday because we can't find your chart. So it's a very-very strange time. But they changed their name everyday. But you know I think I saw some of your mice dancing at fillmore. And they were smiling. Dr. Smith has mentioned Bill Graham the late concert promoter and actually we had an audience question for you "Scoop", do you have any favorite Bill Graham stories? I used to be mistaken for Bill Graham, really I had walked down the street and people would say "hey can I get some tickets to the Dead concert you know, do I have no I always had a really good relationship with him. I liked him a lot. You know, I saw him in difficult situations with a lot of people and you know, he would blow off some times but I had a good connection with him. Bill only yelled at me once, it was at the Us festival, we were calling it the dust festival and I was looking at getting the trash picked up. It was starting to get dark you know, I discussed it with Bill and Jackson Brown had finished his set and I had hug farmers gripped the garbage bags and started cleaning up and I am feeling really smug because we picked up the trash and I am coming off the ramp and Bill says "who told you to do that, he was going to do an encore". I said "Bill, you told me " and killer looks at me and says "don't ever mess with the show". And I was petrified, the next day I saw him, I said "Bill, are you still mad at me". He says "my range is only for the moment my friend". Well and it's funny because you know, we are commemorating of the 40th anniversary of The Summer of Love. Here on the 20th anniversary I was interviewing Bill Graham and I brought up the anniversary and he really dismissed it all that was you know, a media thing, you know, that sort of thing. And I suspect he would be saying the same thing now. In your mind, you know, The Summer of Love was we have read stories that by then the magic had already kind of left the Haight. But would any of you care the comment on that. I would like to say that I I had bobbed down, I had some kind of speaking engagement and was walking down the Haight and I saw the digger free store. And inside it's a low swing in the window. And this beautiful African American girl may be five six years swinging back and forth in sun beams. And I went inside and I was just watching her swinging back and forth and this whisper voice comes in my ears, it says "you want a help". And next thing I know I am in folding cloths for five hours and want a help came out of a guy named Emit Grogan one who started the Diggers and whenever I tried to get something going for Save-a or anything I try and evoke Emits "want a help" and sometimes it really works - when it comes down. You just mentioned Save-a and that was question from the audience and here is your chance to plug your foundation. How is that related to the - you know the summer of love and the whole vibe there and tells us little bit about save foundation. Yeah, certainly I rely on the same musicians the Grateful Dead has been our house band pretty much for 30 years, in one form or another and the Airplane and Jackson and Crosby Stills and Nash and all those kind of folks where working on curable and preventable blindness in third world countries, we done over two million site saving operations and we also worked bringing portable water in to Central America and Giapos and in native American taken on diabetes and the American Indian reservation with garden projects talking circles of elders and bringing back the buffalo and they have actually name a stud buffalo after me Wavy Gravy oh yes and not just ice cream and pretty face. You are listening to that common wealth club of California radio program our guest tonight Dr Davidy E. Smith, "Scoop" Nisker, Paul Krassner and Wavy Gravy celebrating The Summer of Love at 40: The Roots of a Counter-Culture and here is a good question from the audience I am Paraphrasing it actually but "is burning man the love child of the summer of love?" - every body is thinking about that one, wavy - leaps to the micro phone. I really - really got off at burning man, I just, it just tickled me, it was like it was like all these lights and things flashing on us like suddenly some body plugged in the rainbow gathering that's what it kind of reminds me suddenly they were given the electricity. It was just and everything is nothing is sold and you have to carry out every thing you bring in and its lot of beautiful people Jose Angeles said it, he said flowers blossom and humans art and these humans are arting all over the desert floor, it's just magnificent. Scoop Nisker I think you were going to ask something. Yeah I was gone to just say that I think its an extension of summer of love and that feeling of community that people really earn for both community and celebration and I think that a lot of what the summer of love was about, just as a moment - of the movement of people, the first human be-in was held in 1967 and it was the celebration of just being which was so unusual you know in in America where every thing is about doing and what you can accomplish and how much you can, you know make and here was a whole group of people that children really affluence saying we are just going to celebrate existence, we are we want a different consciousness you know and that experiment continues I think to this day. Well again I have different perspective. This is Dr. Smith. David E. I don't get burning man. And I guess one of the things that troubles me, I get Wavy Gravy I get the hog firm I so much admire what he is doing in third world countries but what I have seen is a split between culture and social action. For example one of things our Smith family foundation supports is free clinic and common wealth, common ground free clinic in New Orleans helping with the with poor and hurricane ravished area and lot of the volunteers come from San Francisco imbued with the spirit but one thing that was most moving to me was a woman down there working and she says well my mother used to volunteer at Haight Ashbury free clinics and that's how I got the spirit. So they like music but music is not what drives them and then burning man to me, is kind of like a party you know, and that's not the way I wasn't in The Summer of Love it was the "Scoop" No because not to hold anything wrong with parties. No, no - all I am saying is that the music transformed your life, it was the driving force for attitude and it will the change people like me. Then translate that into social action and now it's the music over here with agents and big money and the social actions over there. So I view Wavy Gravy and the hog farm and what is doing as a separate from burning man as night and day. I like to see more Wavy Gravy and less of Burning man. Wavy you want to add some thing there. I'm just saying that those, these all this other stuff going on the concert for the earth was fantastic, all these cities all over the planet kicking it, the album to save Darfur that the stuff that Bono was doing. I am just I have the stuff that's coming out of Al Gore and that whole revolution, I am feeling that this is the time now, it's happening again and it's happening now and now is all there is. Looking at our audience tonight I would assume that for many tonight's program is a trip down memory lane for others is a history lesson and for the ladder we have a question from the audience about the military angle, the military connection, they write: the San Francisco bay area was a huge staging area for the Vietnam war, young men were being sent there from all over the country and needed the party, hippy icons like Jerry Garcia, Hendricks were veterans I think Country Joe was as well, obviously we have got a war going on right now this action in Iraq and I don't know if any of you will like to relate to what was happening with Vietnam and how that related to the summer of love during the summer of 67, any body want to field that? Again I have one comment there, anti-war movement was every thing here is total non social action guy from using meds and marching in, at a war progress, probably wavy was leading it and I was in the back. But that was so out of character from me, but you are talking about the protest against the war, one of the unknown parts of the Haight Ashbury was the Vietnam War vets against the war came back and settled there. Country Joe McDonald was the musician, Glenn Rasnick who became head of rock medicine was a Vietnam vet. Jack Mc Plucky was a medic and these individuals had been traumatized by the war. They settled on Waller in Steiner and Waller no Waller street, I know where it is in my mind but and that was swords to plow sharers And then they came towards Haight Ashbury clinic drug detoxing facility. Now this is the history lesson for the people and to read about all that rehab in the paper. In 1969 we were detoxing addicts, it was a criminal offense, I was committing about a 100 felonies a day. Because I was detoxing drug addicts on an out patient basis. Well the vets came to our clinic for detox how did that detox get started, a credence clear water benefit by Bill Graham and then suddenly the government started, want to give me grants. And I said what going on here. Two years ago you tried to arrest me and now you want to give me money and we are doing the same thing. Well it's because those vets came to the clinic and the government said we cannot put our boys in jail for getting strung out in a foreign and unpopular war. That's how we got all those federal grants. So we can talk about the antiwar movement, and these gentlemen were much more involved in than I was but what troubles me is how we ignore the vets that came back traumatized, you can be for or against the war, but there is soldiers over there getting beat out strung out and I agree w Wavy. I think 62 '08 is gone to look a lot more like 1968. but we are already treating those vets come back and how do you think you drive a tank for three days and not sleep and you take speed. And the speed is being given them by the military over there. So they can be better soldiers, but they come out here, they get traumatized brain damage getting loaded I don't hear any discussions about that in fact I hope the equivalent Vietnam vets against the war get started I know that that Glenn Rasnick, when the vets come back he goes out and greets them. So I would like to see some some of that some- some I am for the war, I am against the war I am to be against the war but our troops are getting beat up and massacred there and the VA is doing nothing for them.Peter Paul Krasner, you wanted to address this as well? Well I do know for fact that the military was sensed and researched and realized that the counter culture was a threat to because the counter culture was essentially against the Vietnam War and we are not likely to want to participate in it. But I want to go beyond that because it wasn't just a war the counter culture was a threat to the American economy they had thing tanks observing and extrapolating and it could see that young people were making there own clothes, there were not buying them, they were sharing automobiles they didn't get insurance they took care of each other, they used candles instead of light bulbs and you can go down the list of all of things that added to the notion of this want not going to be the consumer economy that they needed and so there was a government attempt to neutralize the counter culture I had been doing a research on this somebody is trying to set up an interview with me to talk to a former FBI guy who was in what they called hippy squad. Where they taught him such things as how to role a joint, the better to infiltrate communes and so it was a threat beyond - there were on even on a religious level you know the young people were leaving western religions of control and becoming involved with the eastern disciplines of liberation. So it was a threat to the country on a lot of different levels besides sex, drugs and rock n roll. I really like to comment on that because everything he says is true and you find it hard to believe you find it hard to believe that FBI informants infiltrated the free clinic movement. I found this later in the Carter administration when I happen to see my docie and I was a branded a communist and all I was trying to do is take care of poor people without charging them and what they did was they get everything Paul said but the part that they would come when we are organizing a free clinic I was president of the national free clinic council and they would play lefter than though that every you did they would say storm city hall - they do everything they can disorganize and these were FBI informants because they didn't want the free clinic movement or anything to organize and so its almost like every conspiracy that you can think of it was worse and I imagined as probably happen on right now when people tried to organize they try to deliver health care to poor people, they try to organize antiwar movement I mean this is before watergate and probably their tactics were were quite primitive but I saw in writing FBI agitators that did this thing that Paul said and acted like free clinic workers and played the lefter than thou game and I never could figure out why we couldn't organize now I realize it wasn't the free clinic workers they couldn't organize it was the FBI informal agitators that disrupted it. I wanted to you just show off hands do you all think that you got an FBI file out there that's at least a couple of pages long. Wow and in the audience too. Wow and its very good like a badge of courage generally yes. I would like "Scoop" Nisker wanted to add something. I wanted to connect what Paul was saying about it being more than an anti war movement that the Summer of love and the whole hippy movement was really a lot more than just anti war in fact the hippies were not quite as political as people think it really was a spiritual I think revolution and partly it had to do and I think there is any legacy really of the hippy it is in the all the meditation and yoga centers all over the country now and it is in the environmental movement, the ecology movement and it may been the instigated by the drugs and I think the drugs certainly had something to do with it seeing a different vision of reality understanding your consciousness in a different way, experimenting with the new psychologies that were starting to emerge in the 60s. it was after taking you know some substances it was understanding the delicate nature of the interface between human and other species it was understanding that you live on a planet. All of those things got there were seeded all those understandings were seeded in that time and its not it wasn't just a you know drugs and rock and roll and music and anti war that there really was a core sea change in the way people regarded their consciousness and reality. Let me you said as it lead into the next question and "Scoop" you probably gave half of your answer just then. But I would like to go down the panel here and have each of you address this question. What is the best thing that have come out of the summer of the love and what is the worst thing to have come out of the summer of the love and-? Wasn't that a YouTube question? Yeah, today's USA Today poll yeah I guess Wavy Gravy will start with you. Well the sharing and caring part is the best thing. Its interconnections, so we realize that we are all the same person trying to shake hands with ourselves. That's a quite a task.And war's a very complicated way of getting acquainted. And the worst thing? Just the hippies dying on smack. Just a bunch of dead hippies, my friends, Janet, Jimmy ouch. Yeah, Paul Krassner. Paul I think the best thing was the sense of community because a lot of people who were the only freak on their block suddenly came to Mecca here and realize that its like coming to a Martian convention and and I guess the worst thing was the exploitation of the sense of community by people who wanted to take the advantage of of a whole community that was filled with trust and and when you find trust if you have an agenda you try and take advantage of that trust. That was the worst thing I think. "Scoop" Nisker. Well I just said that I thought you know environmentalism the ecology movement really was the best thing that came out of out of that time I think. The worst thing I think is a sense of idealism that we fostered a kind of naive idealism that we really thought we were going to change the whole system around in a you know within a generation we there was a lack of patience and a lack of kind of understanding the long term nature of real change and I think that that kind of false optimism that that we had, it lingers into a kind of it turned into a kind of oh the hippies didn't know anything, you know they were just these silly people running around saying, give us the world and we want the world and we want it now. You know I mean we actually chanted that you know, can you believe that? Peter We had no exit strategy. That's true that's true. So any way I think that's the worst thing. Even an active movement that we had going to buy back the earth, then give it away. So it wouldn't be for sale anymore and we bought I remember 700 acres in Northern Vermont which was just recently the Feds tried to seize it and with the help of Howard Dean - Ben & Jerry we turned it into a state park. Speaking of Ben & Jerry I understand they are going to have a new flavor now, with peach and mint and it's going to be called "impeach mint". Yum yum. Bada bing, can I use this gavel for a rim shot there, I don't know. And Dr. Smith I mean you know you are there treating a lot of folks, a lot of the casualties. But in your mind the best thing? The best thing was the merger of music, culture and social action. Scoop has already mentioned many of the things that came out, the environmental movement. But remember the gay rights movement came out of that period. The women rights movement I was treating criminal abortion at San Francisco General Hospital and then suddenly the women and the pro choice said, now the world has to be different. And Janice Joplin got us to start a women's need center, so we could take care of the women. She just lived a couple of blocks away from where we were. So that was all very exciting and positive and continues on today with free clinic movement, Wavy Gravy's work. The worse for me were the drugs. One thing I have learned is that any movement filled by drugs is doomed to failure. Doesn't mean I am carination you know, a drug conservative but I want to just quote Country Joe McDonald who said, we got every thing right but the drugs. And it turned into speed and heroin and it went down the tubes. But don't you think we were talking before about the infiltration of the movement, where did those bad drugs come from I think is a question that has to be explored. I don't know where it came from. All I know is that it was a disaster. There is a big difference between smack, crack and smoking flowers. Well I say you got to qualify your drugs. Well, I am not saying where it came from. All I know is that I remember Timothy Leary lecturing, turn on, tune in, drop out or may be turn on, tune in, drop out and then we took them over to see some bad acid trip and he didn't want to see it you know, he doesn't want to see the causalities. So there is the good side and the bad side, but we dealt with the bad side and when I was just down in New Orleans with all these young idealistic volunteers I see I am not I am not conservative of about drugs but I say, beware of alcohol and drugs and they are. Can I ask and I don't know if anybody want to address this was there any redeeming value to the drugs done during the counter culture movement, before the drugs were bad, when before LSD was illegal, did it contribute to a mind expansion or would the mind expansion have happened without the LSD. Let me start off with that because I took LSD and had a spiritual experience. I don't want to romanticize it. I have four kids, three grand children; I know parents are concerned about it. But I would not have done I would not be here today and I would not be doing what I am doing if I hadn't had a spiritual experience with LSD, no doubt about it. There is no question that to some of us the psychedelics were incredible mind altering the experience that scoop talked about, this nature, bonding with nature seeing that air moving, anything, well may be he knew about it before it took acid, I didn't. And it changed my entire life and it bonded me with the music. The problem is that for me it stopped. I didn't do anymore and actually I quit drinking and now I am in AA in 12 step recovery. But for a lot of people it didn't stop. In other words if you could say, take the psychedelic experience, have a spiritual experience, change your view of the world and stop, then we could keep the good. But the problem is, particularly with the young people, they don't stop there. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't have any answer to the drug problem other than the fact that I just read the newspaper now that Afghanistan turned out record crop of opium, heroin is sky rocketing, the over dose deaths are just sky rocketing, the military is protecting heroin traffics so they can fight against the terrorists in the Mid East, it's just like the Vietnam all over again. And we have to question that and hopefully learn the lessons. I don't know what the lessons are other than addicts have the right to care and we need to include them in our responsibility to help people and figure it out and why, why so many good things went wrong. Wavy or Paul Wavy wanted to wanted to say something. I was just I just want to mention the music. And I think that something ought to happen to honor, we made this Bill Graham Civic; throughout there would be something for Chad Helms, at least a boulevard, something. And on our radio program on KFOG radio last week Scoop Nisker proposed a tomb to the unknown hippie and in Washington is that like -? Not a tomb a statue. But on this whole good bad thing I just wanted to mention something. Lawrence Ferlinghetti told me that the human being in golden gate park in January of 1967, you know all this whole pantheon of great heroes of beatniks and Tim Leary was there and Gary Snyder and Allen was playing his harmonium and chanting "Om" and and one point Ferlinghetti said that Allen Ginsberg leaned over to him and said, what if we have it all wrong? In the issue, the Best of the Bay issue or the Bay Guardian that came out yesterday named 2007 Local Hero- Wavy Gravy. No. Here someone here you go. You didn't know, thanks to the audience member who gave it to us, yeah you can get that framed. My question is going to be this though all the just about everybody on this panel here is considered an icon of the 60s. And are there any misconceptions about you that you would like to clear up if we go to Wikipedia, is there any thing that's wrong if we type your name in Wavy Gravy, you want to start? I did not put the acid in the Kool-Aid at Watts. I spent the whole time on the mike saying, the Kool-Aid on the right is for the children. The Kool-Aid on the left is the Electric Kool-Aid, get it, now let once again, the Kool-Aid on the right is for but people be dancing for three or four hours of the Grateful Dead and they were just looking for something wet and wet was may be a 100 a micrograms swallow. But it was a clear Claire Brush who reported to Tom Wolfe that I did it. She was a reporter from the LA Free Press and was stoned out of her mind and I still have mothers beating me with umbrellas because of this thing and I did not do it. Okay, good. I am glad we clear that up. Paul Krassner, anything floating out there about you that's wrong. I am thinking I am Let me come back to that. Okay. All right, Scoop Nisker? No, they have a got it right. I don't think of myself as an icon, really I mean I hope I am not an icon yet. But you know as a practicing Buddhist we try to get rid of the I, so you know. May be I am just a con. And Dr. David E. Smith, anything out there about you, may some FBI file that you would like to correct? Well I think history will in all this different perspectives and cultural show will give up the broader reflection of this complicated period. I think the thing that troubles me I heard it in 67 and then I heard it later that addiction treatment creates addicts, that's why you have to close down addiction treatment. That was something used to deny a permit for the Haight-Ashbury Clinic. And this idea that if you treat addicts that's why they become addicts is total nonsense. And I have seen that on the web again I am not pro or anti drug, I am pro taking care of people that have problems, if you don't have a problem you don't see a doctor you know, don't come to me if you don't have a problem. But this idea that if we treat people with addiction problems that will encourage them to use drugs I think to this audience it sounds ridiculous but that's being said all over the United States. That's why the 80 percent of people on the criminal justice system have some sever problems, only five percent get treatment and policy for addiction in United States is jail, because if you fund treatment it will encourage addiction. And that has been something that I have seen attributed to me is that one of my supporters in San Francisco said David Smith started the Haight-Ashbury Clinic, the drug revolution started in the United States in Haight-Ashbury and it spread throughout the United States. So David Smith is responsible for ruining the youth of America. And problem is that politicians believe that crap and there is always this conservative element that will say jail, not treatment, and then we fill up the jails and then we got to empty them out because you got too many people there, and this is the drug war is a failed policy. It's an economically disastrous failed policy, supported by political myths like addiction treatment creates addicts. And so I think that is the big misconception of my lifetime work that I think needs to be corrected now. Yeah, we have corrected it, for the record on the radio. So there you go. Oh Paul Krassner, you came up with something. Oh I just I remembered I have been accused of a couple of murders that I - - I would like to deny. One was Phil Specter accusing me of killing Lenny Bruce and - Is this serious, are you serious? Yeah, he did this was a museum in Syracuse. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were having a showing there and they brought me into the special VIP room which is very crowded, Ringo Starr was there and Phil Specter was there and as I entered the room he just point you killed Lenny Bruce and so that that's one wrong accusation and then Valerie Solanas, I met her in New York and she I admire her as a pamphleteer even if I didn't agree with her idea of castrating all men. But I didn't so I empathize with her and I lend her $50 and a couple of days later I didn't know, but she used that money to buy a gun and shoot Andy Warhol and so a lot of the people from Andy Warhol's crowd accused me of hiring her to kill Andy Warhol. So I would like to set the record straight on that. Don't you hate that, when you are falsely accused of trying to kill Andy Warhol? You are listening to the Commonwealth Club of California Radio Program. We are talking tonight with Dr. David E. Smith, "Scoop" Nisker, Paul Krassner and Wavy Gravy celebrating the Summer of Love at 40: The Roots of a Counter-Culture. Some have argued that the counter culture movement helped to end the war, the Vietnam War. Some have argued that the counter culture movement helped get a rotten President out of office. Move to present day. There have been some large anti war demonstrations, but we haven't seen it to the same degree that we saw in the 60s and 70s. Is it because there is not a mandatory draft these days or are there other reasons, Paul Krassner -? Well I definitely think it's partly and the administration knows that. That's why they don't want to have a draft, that's why they keep redeploying and redeploying and redeploying these military people and they come back crazy, crazy from fatigue and insanity. And it's a matter of were we talking about short term memory loss? And so it's I will come back to this thought, but it it's an important one. Okay, raise your hand when it comes back to you. In the mean time Wavy Gravy? What we are talking about? No, no I would like to -. Well the point is that this is why I remember last year Latinos in Los Angeles there, a million people came out in the streets to protest what was going on with the immigration situation and you know and the reason why when there was a draft students ran around with Lapel buttons that said, not with my body you don't. And so if they were draft they know that there would be more people on the streets and my thought is that we should hire guest marches from Mexico to do the job that Americans don't wanted to do. Oh I was just remember how many tens of millions of people that we put on the streets all over this planet, they were totally ignored by the administration. I mean 10s of millions of the young the young people are really really against this war and they are now beginning to show electronically instead of with their bodies in the streets and I think that's very exciting. Do any of you get back to Haight-Ashbury, stroll the streets, yeah I know Wavy I say you the Ben & Jerry - I saw lids on the corner but they were lids for my ice creams, later. I do every morning at Nine AM. I still live on the Haight, walk my dogs and I say I can walk to every place I have been to work for the last 47 years in the Haight-Ashbury and if you wanted to join me just be at Frederick and Clayton I walk down to Ashbury, down by the grateful dead house, by Janet Joplin's house, house, past the clinic with my dogs, I was very thrilled that Tom Brokaw joined me on the my dog walk and the thing that was very exciting is that he said well, David I interviewed you 40 years ago, you look a lot older now. And I said so you do Tom, a lot older. And I my twin grandsons who were here tonight Alex and Hash and my daughter Subree and my wife Mellison were with us and we are in front of the Haight-Ashbury Clinic and he has grandchildren. So he held one of grandsons and he threw up all over Tom's coat. So I have many memories but they are not it's not the past for me. The Haight-Ashbury is a very present reality and I am very interested in these gentlemen's perspective including the outside perspectives as to why when the healthcare system is crumbling, we are in this foreign and unpopular war. We have got an administration that this is totally insensitive, where is the protest? I don't know that I am not a politician I don't understand it. But where is the protest against going on. In 67', the same dysfunctional elements were happening and there was large protest may be as what Wavy said, may be the protest is over the internet. Yeah, I think that there is an economic factor that we really were - it was a generation that came into affluence. America had just become a super power we certainly wasted our power you know quickly but we have just come of age as super power and the youth could I mean you could you know leave on very little get a job earn a little money take a year off, you could I mean we would go to India even I got involved in studying Buddhism and go to India for a year come back work for six months go back for another I mean we were we were the kings of the world and in terms of you know wealth and freedom and I think now the crunch of economic the economic priorities in the young people are getting careers and they want to get established and there is a lot of fear involved and you know there is a not a as much room to experiment and hang out for a while and explore your dreams and your consciousness I think that has lot to do with it. I don't know if any of you want to address this a lot of people as they get older they become more conservative I don't see that with this panel so much why is that so why have you start to your 60s ideals. Let me just mention one thing I don't see that for example the agent should change for health care in United States is not youth any more, its the elderly I was just - couple of years ago I was awarded the senior worker of the State Of California. I stand before you as a senior worker of the year and I said in my talk don't trust any body under 60. Because to me the - my generation are the ones that are saying let's change things, let's change the health care system, the elderly are becoming active in terms of health care reform and the question is not where the seniors are, it's where the youth are and again may be I have romanticized that period. But what I have seen is the people that went through that period got a spirit and they may be retired now and they may be teachers now and they may be software workers now or so you know, a silicon valley worker but they have that spirit and they want to change things. Some how or other the youth haven't got the spirit except in very limited areas that I don't know why. And I am going to observe if any side else want to do address may be afterwards with the audience you can unfortunately we have reached the point in our program where there is time for one last question and I have got this big six stack here of questions, I didn't get to so sorry to the audience members, but I am sure you will agree, we have covered a lot here. The final question is this, for each of you, a single favorite memory that sticks out from the Summer of Love 1967, Wavy Gravy, I know that's going back a way but do you have a favorite memory? A memory that has popped into my head is that bouncing the head a little bit to the moratorium and Pete Seger who is on stage singing "oh we are saying is give peace a change," Mitch Miller jumps on the stage and says give me a sea of V's and everybody is swaying back and forth and Abby Hoffman leans over and says they got Norman Loubof in the wings. And I says Abby, we don't need to do this anymore, Middle America has taken over the peace movement, at that moment somebody lets loose a bunch of doves and one of them pooped them on my third eye. Aby says, there is your answer. Well that the back story is that I was a virgin till I was 26 and then the sexual revolution came and I remember I was on Haight street and walking along and I saw a young woman across the street who I thought I remembered as an old friend and I waved to her and she waved to me and she came across the street and we were talking a while and I realized, we had never met before. But I got laid anyway. I can't believe this one hour program that's going is only reference to free love, Scoop Nisker, your favorite memory? Well I its hard to separate one thing out of that that mélange of wonderful experiences. I think listening to Ravi Shankar at Monterey pop festival when I was on LSD and and swaying with you know, a whole circle of people and just feeling like all the cultures are coming together all you know love is in the air it really we really are a going to make a big change in the world. It's really peace is really going to happen, it's going to work you know, that feeling and I had it many different times I think through that year. It was just you know, sweet. My favorite memory is June 7 1967, Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic opens up, has my name on door, David E. Smith, MD and Associates. I had $100 on our pocket and 250 young people were lined up around the street. How on heavens name did they even find out we existed; 24\7 and I felt; now my life has meaning. And that is an incredible memory, Joan Baez was singing in the waiting room, music was all over, and I thought this was the most incredible time of my life. What a great way to end this show. Our thanks to Dr. David E. Smith, "Scoop" Nisker, Paul Krassner and Wavy Gravy as we celebrate the Summer of Love at 40: The Roots of a Counter-Culture. We also thank our audiences here and on the radio I am Peter Finch and now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California, celebrating more than a century of enlightened discussion is adjourned.