Day One San Fran

The haight is dead man. The homeless generations that marched there have finally rolled their death knell, given up, passed the pipe and now works as a waitress in a Mc. Donalds downtown.

Don't bother telling me what you're thinking. I'm 24 and its 2007. As long as I can remember, the word "hippie" has been an insult. A joke. It's just another byword for kitsch, an identity for cooky teenagers to act out, a label, a slogan.

They use flower power to sell cars now.

Anyone who actually mattered in that scene in the sixties sleeps on the side of the road. Or six feet under.

I'm not talking about hippies here. I'm just pissed off because we have lost one more stage where we had the freedom to express freedom.

For anyone of the millions of disillusioned idiots like me, with dreams beyond dollar signs, it's just so funny to think, what killed the messages from the sixties? Who silenced the idea that the power of youth could become a force that mattered rather than a phase you pass through between drudgery?

Between school and work.

Between the warm hug of your dreams for yourself slowly turning to mediocrity.

The sense of a new evolution in human thinking, of hope in folly. Just dead like so many useless hippies.

I wonder what my dad would say if he ever read that. I see him laughing in my face or roaring at me for thinking that what was born there was ever anything more than a bunch of dirty drug addicts.

And yeah, he is right.

The cab dropped us on Lower Haight st. at about 2:30 today. The weather was beautiful too. 2 degrees too warm to wear a jumper, just breezy enough that pit stains weren't a problem.

For me, pit stains are a big issue. They can make or break my night. I'm nearly always nervous, or anxious, or pissed off, or carrying drugs.

So I sweat a lot.

I was truly delighted this morning.

Giddy.

I felt 16 again. With everything that has happened in the last two days. For some reason, the 20 hours of cars, planes, trains and busses that it took to get me here from Ireland had rebirthed my soul. It burned away the ire that hung over me like so much sweat in Limerick.

Why wouldn't I be happy? I landed a day ago. I've overcome the jetlag. I spent the morning walking in the park. This afternoon I had the best prawn I have ever eaten.

It came in a seafood linguini brought by a stoner waiter on Chestnut Ave. But even the waiter had some new tricks now. I felt the force of a million customer service seminars behind his every friendly movement. This guy, with the slits for eyes and the attitude that a stoner recognises in another, who when we told him we were going to the Haight told us he lived there, had his shit down when it came to maxing out our tip. Maybe it's just me, and I was a bit paranoid of any other human wanting to talk to me after so much time travelling, I don't know.

The point is, the poor guy lost our order. They were using one of those computer systems they have in restaurants to put our order through to the chef some 15 feet behind him. The computer froze, and in the minute or so it took to boot back up, he had forgotten our order. So yeah, he was definitely a stoner. Sarah even said it to me.

She noticed the second we came in. I was so hungry by the time we got to the restaurant that I wouldn't have even thought of it if she hadn't pointed it out. But when he came over to tell us, he did something really weird. The first thing he did was to kneel down, to our eye level as we were sitting down.

I know. Inconsequential.

Silly to even notice, let alone moan about it. But I'm telling you. I was there, and that little hunkerdown before he opened his mouth, that wasn't something any human would naturally do. He got down, peered into our eyes, and with every fake sense of apology he could throw into his slits-for-eyes, told us he had brainfarted the order. And it felt so unnatural, it left all three of us uncomfortable.

Of course I laughed it off. I couldn't care less that this poor bastard who has to work for tips lost my order. That's not my point. The guy served me the best plate of food I have eaten since Milan. And it cost ten dollars.

The point is, as soon as he took that three quarters of a second to pull his knees down and implore us on our level, I suddenly realised that the push of capitalism, dollar signs in someone's eyes, had gotten into this guy's soul and existed there, worrying about customer service, alongside everything else that our generation has to fret about. This guy was fretting about us. And the only reason was money.

That's not fair. He should be worrying about rent, about when he is next going to get laid, about if he has enough weed to last him to the weekend, about sport, or his girlfriend, or his health, or if his screenplay is ever going to get finished. He should be worried about something he cares about. Not about whether he cost a tourist two minutes of wait time for fantastic food

Someone told him that when you have to apologise to someone and you aren't sure how it will go, the best thing to do is hunker down and talk to them at their eye level. Somewhere in this guy's make-up, either his need for tips to pay his rent, or his bastard boss telling him so, he had altered his natural human state to try and manipulate others to smooth over problems. He didn't want to be blamed for anything. I understand that.

I really liked this guy.

We tipped 25%.

I'm still young enough to exist in counter culture though. The world hasn't beaten me down enough yet, sucked enough brain power out so I am happy with a growing bank account and some tv before bed.

I knew that after lunch, we would head back to the hotel for a nap, and then sometime, about two or three o'clock, we would land on Haight Ashbury. This fact alone was making me feel like a kid at Christmas.

For as long as I knew that we were coming to San Francisco, Haight Ashbury was the number one thing I was excited about. So excited that I demanded it was the first place that we visit.

That wasn't just because I knew we could score weed there. Actually, weed had nothing to do with it at all. The last time I was there, 4 years ago, Haight Ashbury, within ten minutes, became the spiritual home of every bit of childish freedom left in my soul. Because of the shambly buildings with their acid posters of Jimi and Janice and Jerry, and the shambly people, friendly, silly, childish, forgetful, and mostly entirely mad.

This time, when we landed on Lower Haight, about ten blocks from hippie hill, I opened the cab door and immediately something just felt wrong.

For the first time in my life, I saw three black guys sitting on the steps to a building about a half a block away, and I wanted to cross the street. They were crackheads, but still, they meant me no harm I am sure.

But I still crossed the street before I got there.

As soon as I got a block away from them, I told myself that the only reason I crossed was because the sun was thumping down on our Irish skin, and this side of the street was in shade. That was just one of those pretty lies you tell yourself to feel a bit happier about being an asshole.

I felt the fear of someone different and acted. Animalistically, I don't know. But from that point, it didn't really get any better. I don't know why it even matters, except to let you know that the whole thing had me feeling uneasy, and that was the last thing I expected, there of all places.

All the hippie shops were still there. All the bongs and vinyl, tee-shirts and posters. But before, it seemed like a quirky neighbourhood, like camden town squared.

Now the shops, and by extension entire blocks, just seemed like cynical ploys to extort dollars from wallets.

The only remnants of the messages left by great artists were stores, selling shirts with their pictures on them, selling the fact that they once walked around the place, just making a quick buck off of something they had nothing to do with whilst kindly bastardising everything important those same artists had ever said.

But, you know the first time I was there years ago, I took the bus all the way to upper Haight. But this time, when the cab dropped us off, I didn't realise that that was still ten blocks away and I had never been to lower Haight before.

I still had images of the guitar store I had bought Christine from, Amoeba records and finding Led Zeppelin bootlegs I had never seen before, even the punks sitting on the side of the road. Upper Haight was burned into my brain. So I was looking forward to seeing that, and presuming that once we got a few blocks past this new and unfriendly terrain, the feeling of unease would be replaced with fondness and hope.

It wasn't.

Block by block and as I started to recognise things, I ticked off from the list in my brain and everywhere that had inspired dreams, and fondness, and wishes to be there, just seemed dead.

When we finally got to the Mc. Donalds that marks the gap between Haight st. and Hippie hill and the start of Golden Gate park, I actually felt like crying.

Some guy asked me for some spare change. I sat down next to him and his girlfriend and said sure. I handed him a dollar bill and asked him where he could score us some weed.

He said he didn't know, and he really didn't want to talk to us about it.

Before, in that same spot, people would practically have weed stalls set up.

His girlfriend said that there were still loads of people selling in the park, and if we gave her a few bucks she would walk with us and find someone. We agreed.

This girl was nice, and under the dirt that had accumulated from living rough, she was pretty and had a good body too.

She smiled at us, and under her smile I could definitely see intelligence and pain shine through. I don't know how, but something in the twinkle of her eyes told me she was smart, and could be trusted. She wasn't a drug addict at all or any kind of real vagrant, just another soul that had lost her way between school and work.

The park was 200 feet away, the part of the park where people always sell weed is quite open and there is no way that we could get mugged in broad daylight. The daily footfall alone would prevent most crime there, and if she started leading us anywhere dark or strange, we could just walk off, so I felt totally safe.

She was definitely nervous though.

At least until she heard our Irish accents, she thought that we were plain clothes cops. As soon as she ascertained for certain that we weren't, she eased up and started talking.

And she could really chatter, smiling and telling us about how she just had to pay 50 bucks to get her dog out of the pound, and about how three of her friends were busted for selling weed to undercover police.

Despite how friendly she was, by this stage I was just pissed off.

There was nothing to be gained from being there and no sense of fun. But at least if I could score some weed it wouldn't be a wasted trip.

She walked me up a little hill in the park and introduced me to a guy called Eddy, skinny, down-at-heel and leatherclad, possibly homeless, who just looked really tired.

She whispered something in his ear, and he said no, he didn't have any.

I realised after that the reason he said no was the same reason she was nervous. He was certain that I was a cop too.

She realised right away and blurted

"Come on man, its ok, they're from Ireland."

He looked me up and down and smiled.

"Irelanders? You're a long way from home man!"

He threw something on the ground.

It was a bag of weed.

I stepped on it and asked him how much it was, and he said 50 bucks.

I took the crumpled 50 I had set aside in my back pocket and dropped it casually. He stepped on that. Then we both made a play of tying up our laces.

Once that dance was done, I thanked him profusely, introduced myself and said that I hoped I would see him again.

He said that he had two kids, and that even though he hated it, he was here everyday selling weed, and if I wanted to score, he would be there waiting. With this, his eyes got sadder, so we parted.

I met back up with Sarah, we walked straight out of the park and hailed the first cab we saw.

There wasn't any other reason to stay.

I don't really know how or when that spirit that flitted on long after the sixties died finally got put out. I don't know if it is just me and that I had gotten older, or that there were no tourists there, or what it was that ruined the Haight.

One thing i know for sure though, the fierce freedom that birthed there checked out like a homeless man in a dumpster.